One of the advantages of the Bushnell Hospital facility as a boarding school was that it already had resources in place, such as this gymnasium. (USU Special Collections & Archives, Compton Photograph Collection, P0313, 1949:0407 no.9)

Bushnell Military Hospital had been built to accommodate thousands of patients, so it had plenty of room for the Navajo youth whose educational needs were not being served on the reservation. (USU Special Collections & Archives, Compton Photograph Collection, P0313, 1949:0407 no.20)

Brigham City was not the ideal place for a Navajo boarding school, being far from the Navajo Nation and in a much different climate, but the availability of the former and vacated Bushnell Military Hospital and the federal government’s push to end support of reservations during the late 1940s set the stage for Intermountain Indian School. As an off-reservation boarding school for the Navajo Nation, and later other Native nations, Intermountain had a lasting impact on Brigham City and on Native American students.