Commissioner of Indian Affairs Morris Thompson announced today that the Douglas Construction Company of Topeka, Kansas, has been awarded a $3.5 million contract to build new facilities at the Haskell Indian Junior College, Lawrence, Kansas.
The contract calls for the construction of a new learning resource center and a kitchen-dining building.
The learning resource center, with approximately 34,800 square feet of floor area, will house a library and provide facilities for media production and distribution, photography processing, TV studio, offices and classrooms.
The kitchen-dining building will have approximately 26,700 square feet of area. In addition to the dining room, it will contain the kitchen, bakery, storage and related facilities.
This construction is part of an ongoing program to provide needed facilities for the recently established junior college program at Haskell and to replace old or deteriorated buildings.
Haskell, established in 1884, is one of the oldest Government supported schools in the United States. It began as an industrial training school and has evolved through the years. It became an accredited high school in 1927, a post-secondary vocational technical school in 1966 and a junior college in 1970.
Many of today's Indian leaders are former Haskell students.
