Winslow, AZ Tour Preview

The Winslow U.S. Post Office was designated as “11 Most Beautiful in the World” by Architectural Digest in May 2023. It was built in 1935.

The round dome building is an elementary public school. The students who attend Winslow Unified School District score high on state exams, and considered the top 2 or 3 best schools in northern Arizona. The school district averages about 55% Native American, 15 % black, and 32% white. Many Native Americans move to Winslow from their reservations for employment and a good education.

In the 1930s, when a member of the local tribe contracted TB, they were sent to a sanatorium in Winslow, one of many across the country. Native Americans who died at the sanatorium were then buried at the cemetery. The site here is the burial ground for hundreds of Native Americans, many unknown.

In 1958, the U.S. government began creating off-reservation Indian boarding schools. Winslow BIA dorm was one of 17 off-reservation dormitories established at the time.

The U.S. has a legal obligation to provide health care to Native Americans. The Native Americans in the Winslow area are served by Winslow Indian Health Care Corporation. The hospital initially started as a tuberculosis sanatorium in 1931. In 1948, the facility was turned into a federal Indian Health Service hospital, or commonly known as IHS. The hospital continued from 1948 to 1977 then transitioned to an outpatient health care facility. In 2002, tribal leaders decided to take escalating health care matters into their own hands premised on a 1975 federal law known as the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. Today, the Winslow Indian Health Care Corporation serves about 16,403 Native Americans in the region.

A 2004 by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights called “Broken Promises: Evaluating the Native American health care system” called out the dismal status of health care. It said, “Native Americans are 770 percent more likely to die from alcoholism, 650 percent more likely to die from tuberculosis, 420 percent more likely to die from diabetes, 280 percent more likely to die from accidents, and 52 percent more likely to die from pneumonia or influenza than the rest of the United States, including white and minority populations” These numbers haven’t changed much.