Cherokee National Capitol

The Cherokee National Capitol, now the Cherokee Nation Courthouse, is a historic tribal government building at 101 South Muskogee Avenue in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Completed in 1869, it served as the capitol building of the Cherokee Nation from 1869 to 1907, when Oklahoma became a state. It now serves as the site of the tribal supreme court and judicial branch. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961 for its role in the Nation's history.Description and historyThe Cherokee Nation Courthouse stands in the center of Courthouse Square, bounded by East Delaware Street, South Water Avenue, East Keetoowah Street, and South Muskogee Avenue. It is a two story masonry building with neoclassical Italianate style, built out of red brick and white-painted wooden trim. It is five bays wide and seven deep, with slightly projecting sections consisting of the center three bays on each side. Each of these is topped by a pedimented gable with a dentillated cornice. The wall bays are articulated by piers, and have segmented-arch windows on the ground floor and rounded-arch windows on the second. There are entrances on the east and west ends, the main entrance on the west side sheltered by a 20th-century brick vestibule.The Cherokee Nation first established a republican form of government in 1820, while still occupying their ancestral lands in the southeastern United States. The tribe was one of several forcibly relocated to what is now Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears of the 1830s. The Nation reestablished its government quickly, in 1838, following the removal, with Tahlequah as its capital. In addition to establishing its courts and council, the Nation built seminaries for both male and female students, as education was highly valued.