If you think museums are for the elite and full of art you don't understand, you haven't been to the Koshare Indian Museum. This museum is more about being a kid with an unlimited imagination and a desire to dream. The museum built in 1949, through the dedicated efforts of a group of boys, has since been a place of promise, a place of inspiration and a place of dreams to generations that followed.
President Eisenhower stood in the middle of the Koshare Kiva and said it was truly amazing. World Famous Native American Artist, Woody Crumbo, was so inspired by the program that he moved to La Junta to paint. Millions of people throughout the Koshare Kiva's history have come to visit the place not just for the museum, but also what the museum has stood for.
The Koshare Club
The Koshare Indian Museum, although built in 1949, begins its history during the bottom of the Great Depression in February of 1933. Anxiety ran high and money was short, but in the midst of dispair a group of kids found the one thing most urgently needed was
More Than A Museum
the comfort of close and lasting friendships. The Koshare Club was an organization to bring them together to share their strength with one another. Surely the town believed the Koshares to be crazy, for this was not the time to be starting something new. From day one, however, the Koshare dream has been worked on night and day for seventy-five years to make it come true. Although times have changed, somethings are timeless and the foundation for the Koshare organization is still laid upon the solid rocks of friendship.
A Dream Place and A Place of Dreams
When the Koshares start suggest a dream, no matter how big or small, never are their creative thoughts met with a "it can't be done." Instead, the other kids and leaders in the organization ask, "How can we do it?" The Koshare Kiva and museum collection are fine examples of past dreams of the kids. Read More
A Monument to World War II
The nation had seen a large part of the world destroyed, populations cut down in size and friends and family members lost during World War II. The country had gone from the Great Depression to World War II and came out as a world power in the end. However, in this end due to these past events the nation had a new identity. Service to one's nation was now focused upon service to one's community.
