I spent some time over the weekend at Steele Indian School Park. I’ve driven through the park before to check it out, and it looked nice but I was never in the mood to actually lay about. (Plus it was 100+° on all those days, I believe.) Equipped with my new telephoto lens, I decided this time to take a slow walk around the main areas and see what I could see.

^[1]

And I saw that I love my new lens! Not only can I frame shots more easily, I can capture photos of unwitting victims citizens from afar. On top of getting a few shots I really like, I discovered the rather obvious fact that the historical buildings within Steele Indian School Park are the original Indian School. If you live in Arizona and didn’t grow up here, you probably thought the street name, “Indian School,” was a bit odd. And then it promptly blended in with the likes of Hohokam Expressway and Squaw Peak Highway.

If you walk around the paved areas of the park, the lamp posts all have small marquees on them with various descriptive texts of the history of the school. I didn’t realize this until I was almost ready to leave, so I didn’t really get the full idea… but basically they talk about how the school was built, what sort of local social issues they faced, ceremonies the school practiced, etc. You can read a pretty short description on the Phoenix government’s website here ^[2], and I hope to go back to the park and record some of the writings on those placards since they don’t seem to be available online anywhere.

Until then, if you want to check out some of the other pictures I captured in the park, you can find them here ^[3].

Steele Indian School Park ^[4]
300 East Indian School Road
Phoenix, AZ