EXHIBITS

Building 74 wasn’t part of the original plans for Bushnell Hospital, and the functions of many of the building changed even during the four years of WWII. Image courtesy of Cartographic Branch of the National Archives at College Park.

Though most of the Bushnell Hospital-Intermountain Indian School buildings on the land acquired by Utah State University were too dilapidated to save, the university was able to preserve one small building called Building 74. This restored building reflects a slice of Bushnell-Intermountain history and stands as a reminder of the many events that took place at the site. 

Building 74 represents how Bushnell Military Hospital expanded and grew in its few years of operation between 1942 and 1946.

Building 74 is on left of this photo, showing it was in use or almost finished by 1945. The unusual window placement is clearly visible. Photo courtesy of Special Collections, J. Willard Marriott Library, The University of Utah, Wallace and Mary Doi Photograph Collection, P0884n1_03_51

The hospital had to evolve as World War II progressed and medical technologies changed. The brace shop, north of Building 74, expanded as the hospital treated an influx of soldiers with amputations. The new brace shop expansion was described as a one-story brick building with concrete floors, asphalt shingles, gypsum wall boards, and fluorescent lighting like Building 74, but it was likely on the north side of the original brace shop. In its four years, Bushnell also added buildings for workshops, a gym, a theater, an officer’s club, surgery, occupational therapy, dry cleaning, and warehouses, plus a POW camp to the south. We know where many of these buildings were, which leaves the identity of Building 74 as something of a mystery. 

Bushnell in 1949 before becoming Intermountain Indian School. Building 74 is on the right edge of the picture, half cut off. You can see how it’s disconnected from the rest of the buildings, including the Bushnell-era morgue and brace shop, which became workshops for Intermountain students. Photo courtesy of Utah State University Special Collections and Archives, Compton Photograph Collection, P0313 1949:0407 no.8

Building or reusing buildings wasn’t the only way that Bushnell staff improvised to keep the hospital functioning, especially because of wartime shortages. The first desks in the hospital were just repurposed packing crates. Wheelbarrows were used to deliver meals to patients in the early days because the hospital didn’t yet have food carts.  

Bushnell administration often shifted departments around to accommodate the facility's changing needs. For instance, they needed a space to repair the many typewriters used by the doctors and their assistants, so the typewriter maintenance moved into the former linen exchange. When more patients needed occupational therapy to help them find work after Bushnell, Building 58 became the Reconditioning Department.  

Though we’re not sure what Building 74 was used for, we do know it represents Bushnell’s ongoing need for more space to treat the over 10,000 veterans who came here as patients until 1946. 

This map of Intermountain Indian School shows Building 74 as the language lab. Image courtesy of Utah State University Special Collections and Archives, Dewey Books, 970.5In8 

Once Bushnell Hospital became Intermountain Indian School, Building 74 transformed along with the rest of the facility to teach thousands of Navajo children. Its first use as part of Intermountain Indian School was as the English language lab. 

The Navajo language is one of the most complex languages to learn. That was why Navajo Code Talkers used it in World War II to convey messages the enemy couldn’t decipher. The Navajo have kept their language despite forced removal from their lands and early boarding schools that tried to eliminate their culture. This meant that many Navajo youth in the 1950s were only fluent in Navajo. In an effort to integrate Navajo children into mainstream society, Intermountain Indian School insisted that they become bilingual and learn English as well. In the early days of the school, the students had bilingual dorm parents and translators for teachers who didn’t speak Navajo. The language lab in Building 74 was a place where the children could practice their English skills.  

Intermountain used a variety of techniques to teach Navajo students English, including listening to recording and making recording of themselves. Photo Courtesy of Utah State University Special Collections and Archives, BOOK COLL 57 no.23 1956, page 48. 

After 1974, when students from many different Native nations came to Intermountain, they brought languages and cultures from many diverse nations. By this point, most of the students who came to Intermountain, Navajo or otherwise, knew at least some English, so the school no longer needed the language lab. Building 74 then became the detention center.  

School administrators were concerned about high tardiness rates at Intermountain. Some students’ cultures didn’t keep track of time in the same way that mainstream Anglo-American culture did, so they were often late to class or activities. Students who were late were sent to the detention center, along with students who were behind in their work. In detention, they had to sit in an assigned seat separated from other students and not talk or listen to music. After the introduction of the detention center, tardiness rates at Intermountain dropped. Some students remember taking music classes in the building as well. 

Building 74 when USU started the restoration process. Though the building was damaged, it was structurally sound and could be returned to its Intermountain Indian School appearance. Photo courtesy of Cyndi Peterson-Lanham.

Building 74 on the Utah State University Brigham City campus, fully restored, with the Intermountain I visible on the mountainside to the right. Photo courtesy of Emily Wheeler.

When Intermountain Inter-tribal School closed, Brigham City was left with acres of empty buildings. As in the days after Bushnell, the city hoped to find a use for those resources. The former hospital and school buildings included a gym, pool, dorm rooms, medical offices, classrooms, laundry, commercial kitchens, and everything else needed for the school to function. It seemed that there must be a way to put these buildings to use, especially the gym and pool, but most were abandoned.  

Some of the resources survived. A new golf course fulfilled a goal for the site that had existed since Bushnell days, and a few of the dorms to the north found a new life as townhomes. A local congregation moved into the church building. The old laundry, with its distinctive roof, became a furniture store. For a while, Building 74 was a music store—a former student bought a guitar from it—and it was also used a storage shed for maintenance or landscaping. 

Yet the bulk of the buildings sat abandoned and began to decay. Some people vandalized the empty buildings, knocking out windows and defacing them with graffiti. Rumors swirled that the buildings were haunted (a rumor that former students scoff at), and ghost hunters trespassed to make recordings of the buildings. Other trespassers came to try to understand the history of the Indian school and document the art left behind by students and teachers. 

Perhaps because of its small size and simple facilities, Building 74 remained relatively unbothered and intact. The university was able to restore it to its historic appearance, and it now serves as a representative for many lost buildings which once occupied the site.