Koshare Indian Museum

The Koshare Indian Museum is an art and scouting museum located in La Junta, Colorado, on the campus of Otero Junior College. Established in 1948 and opened in 1949, the museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of Native American art and material culture, particularly works by Pueblo and Plains tribal artists. It is closely affiliated with the Koshare Indian Dancers, a Boy Scout troop that has performed interpretations of Native American dance since 1933. The institution occupies a distinctive Pueblo Revival building featuring the largest self-supporting log roof in the world. While the museum has played a significant role in regional cultural life and in facilitating scouting activities, it has also been the subject of sustained criticism from Native American communities regarding cultural appropriation.

The museum's origins lie in the Koshare Indian Dancers, founded in February 1933 by Scoutmaster James F. "Buck" Burshears (1909-1987) as the Boy Scout Indian Club. The group, later renamed Koshare, meaning "clown" or "delight-maker" in the Hopi language, first practiced in Burshears's backyard and chicken coop in La Junta. The first two members, Bill Sisson and Bob Inman, helped expand Troop 232 to include eighteen other Scouts, and the group's first performance took place in September 1933 at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church. The museum building was constructed in 1949 on the Otero Junior College campus and opened on November 11, 1949. The institution celebrated its 75th anniversary with a reunion at the kiva on July 25, 2008, attended by hundreds of current and former members including the two original members, Sisson and Inman. The museum's history is documented in part through the compilation memoir Be a Great Boy. The building was added to the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties on December 13, 1995.

Specific individual works in the collection are not documented in the available sources. The museum's significance derives less from internationally celebrated masterpieces than from its role as a regional repository of Pueblo and Plains material culture and its function as the performance venue and archive for the Koshare Indian Dancers. The compilation memoir Be a Great Boy serves as an archival record of the museum's history and media coverage.

The museum building is a tri-level structure in the Pueblo Revival style, located on the Otero Junior College campus in La Junta. Its most distinctive architectural feature is an attached kiva built with the largest self-supporting log roof in the world. This construction was completed in 1949, and the building was added to the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties on December 13, 1995. The kiva serves as the primary performance space for the Koshare Indian Dancers, who present 50-60 Summer and Winter Ceremonial shows there annually.

The Koshare Indian Museum is located in La Junta, Colorado, within Otero County, on the campus of Otero Junior College. The institution maintains an active website at koshares.com. Visitors may attend the Koshare Indian Dancers' seasonal ceremonial performances at the kiva. The museum provides discounts and hostel accommodations for Boy Scout troops traveling to Philmont Ranch. The institution continues to operate as both a museum and a scouting-affiliated organization, though its practices have drawn criticism from Native American communities for decades. In May 1972, hundreds of Native Americans, including members of the American Indian Movement, protested against the Koshare performances. Native American historian Philip J. Deloria, in his book Playing Indian, characterized the Koshare Indian Museum and Dancers as "object hobbyists" who adopt the material culture of indigenous peoples of the past while failing to engage with contemporary native peoples. Criticism has centered on the inappropriate mixing of elements from different tribes and the removal of sacred practices from their proper context. A Zuni Pueblo councilman, after witnessing a performance in the 1950s, told the performers: "We know your hearts are good, but even with good hearts you have done a bad thing."