Indian Artifacts Get High Desert Home

Sun., Sept. 6, 1998

The High Desert Museum is building a 10,000-square-foot addition to house a vast collection of 7,000 Northwest Indian artifacts now in storage.

The collection was donated by Doris Swayze Bounds in 1991 just three years before her death at age 89.

All her life, Bounds collected clothing, jewelry, ceremonial regalia, tools and weapons from tribes, especially those from the Columbia River Plateau. The Blackfeet made her an honorary tribal member.

The collection includes baskets, beadwork, pottery, weaving, carvings and photographs.

Bounds’ son, Roger Bounds, attended the recent groundbreaking.

“I am quite excited to have such a rather immense collection have a home,” he said. “It has spent a long time in a dark closet.”

Only about 15 percent of the collection will be on display at any one time, museum spokesman Jack Cooper said. That will allow the displays to change, giving visitors something new to see each time they visit the hall.

Television monitors will play taped messages from tribal elders who will help make displays as authentic as possible.

The new museum addition is expected to open in about a year. It’s part of an ongoing $20 million building program that includes a birds of prey exhibit, education center, store, cafe and new administrative offices.

Since opening in 1982, the museum has been Oregon’s main interpretive center for natural and cultural history east of the Cascades. The museum draws about 200,000 visitors annually.

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