The Ancient Village has been and remains the oldest and most enduring attraction at the Cherokee Heritage Center. It opened in 1967 as the first part of a four-phase project that was to become the Cherokee Heritage Center. This site was selected because it was the original location of the Cherokee Female Seminary. At the time, it was an all but forgotten piece of land five miles outside of Tahlequah. Trees and dense undergrowth made it nearly impossible to view the remains of the seminary columns. Yet, men like Chief W. W. Keeler and Martin Hagerstrand were able to share a vision and create the Cherokee Heritage Center from that wilderness.
Over the years, many people have worked in the village. Some have gone on to serve on the tribal council, or even be elected Principal Chief. Several villagers have been honored as “Cherokee Living Treasures.” In some cases, villagers who spent their childhood in the village later brought their own children to work.
In 1966, a formal design contract was negotiated with the architectural-engineering firm of Hudgins, Thompson, Ball and Associates, Tulsa, Oklahoma, which included a provision that Charles “Chief” Boyd would be the designer of the project. Mr. Boyd and his family then moved to Tulsa from Colorado and joined the firm.
Col. Hagerstrand had begun research in Cherokee history and culture, first as a hobby in the late 1950’s, and on a more serious basis as early as 1962. Resource materials were available in the Cherokee Collection at Northeastern State College Library, the collection of papers and pamphlets at Gilcrease Institute in Tulsa, and pertinent reports of the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution. The late Dr. Jack Frederick Kilpatrick, a noted scholar of Cherokee heritage and student of Cherokee history, then Professor of Music at Southern Methodist University, offered substantial guidance and technical advice during the planning period and during construction of the village. Date and descriptions developed by Drs. Kneberg and Lewis at the University of Tennessee were also helpful. Architect Boyd also researched the Cherokee past, with particular attention to structures, and arrived independently at a “format” for the ancient village which corresponded basically to previous concepts developed by Hagerstrand and Kilpatrick.
Read more about the history of The village at Tsa-La-Gi