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Help Save the Historic Saline Courthouse
by Christina Berry

Living outside of the Cherokee Nation boundaries, and outside of Oklahoma, I find it can be a challenge keeping up with events and issues that effect the Cherokee Nation. I rely on friends and family to pass the word on about important news.

Earlier this week, in the course of a single day I received word from not one but three people about the "Saline Preservation Association." After reading a little about the Association and their mission I became increasingly fascinated and excited about their cause -- to preserve a long neglected piece of Cherokee history -- to save the Saline Courthouse.

The Saline Courthouse is one of nine original district courthouses built by the Cherokee Nation in the 1880s. It is the only one still standing. The courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and Preservation Oklahoma's 2003 Endangered List. And now, with the Saline Preservation Association taking up the cause to restore the sight, it seems this courthouse will be saved from ruin.

As a historian and a Cherokee, I feel a real affinity for this project. It's these historic places that can provide the most tangible connections to our ancestors and people. Had this courthouse fallen into ruin like the other eight, we probably wouldn't have known to miss it. But since we have it and have a chance to save it, that's exactly what we should do -- preserve all we can from our past so that our history doesn't exist solely within the pages of books.

The Association is holding a meeting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, March 13, 2004 at the Coo-Y-Yah Museum in Pryor, and the public is invited. Jay Hannah will speak and the Association will unveil architechtural renderings of the proposed renovations.