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NEWS RELEASE
Peoria Riverfront Museum and Peoria Tribe Celebrate First-of-its-Kind Collaboration
Peoria Tribe Made 14 Custom Cases for Peoria Riverfront Museum’s Center for American Decoys
Dedication and Press Conference August 26, 2 p.m. with
Chief Craig Harper and Peoria Tribe Representatives
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Team members of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma (left to right), craftsmen Gabriel Webb, Craig Weston, Noah Popejoy, and David Brand, stand with the cases they built for the Peoria Riverfront Museum’s Center for American Decoys. The project represents a first-of-its-kind agreement with Chief Craig Harper and the Peoria Tribe.
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PEORIA, Ill., August 22, 2024—The Peoria Riverfront Museum and the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma celebrate the first major business transaction in generations between Central Illinois and the Peoria Nation with the first-ever commission of 14 state-of-the-art, internally lit display cases made by the Peoria Tribe and generously underwritten by the museum’s Ronald P. Bonati Fund.
A dedication and press conference will be held at the museum on August 26 at 2 p.m., with Craig Harper, Chief of the Peoria Nation, and representatives from the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. The Chief will help dedicate the cases and improvements to the museum’s Center for American Decoys.
The project represents a first-of-its-kind agreement between the Peoria community and the Peoria Nation. Based in Miami, Oklahoma, the Peoria Nation has more than 3,700 members throughout the United States. The cases are one of the Peoria Tribe’s single largest projects and its first-ever museum commission.
“It is a great honor to have engaged with the Peoria Tribe in this way. This essential new business relationship commemorates a new friendship with the namesake Tribe of our city and county while symbolically spotlighting Indigenous peoples’ role in inventing the waterfowl decoy more than 2,000 years ago,” said John Morris, president and CEO of the Peoria Riverfront Museum. “To our knowledge, this is the first meaningful contemporary commerce between the Peoria Tribe and the city that bears its name.”
The new cases will allow for the exhibition of nearly 50 of the finest decoys on loan from the American Folk Art Museum in New York City, in an exhibition funded by a grant from Alice Walton’s Art Bridges Foundation.
“It is an honor for the American Folk Art Museum to partner with the Peoria Riverfront Museum in celebrating the accomplishments of self-taught artists across time and place,” said Jason T. Busch, Becky and Bob Alexander director and CEO at the American Folk Art Museum. “We are grateful for the magnanimous support of Alice Walton and the Art Bridges Foundation for sharing the collections of America’s museums across the nation, especially as we approach the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026.”
The Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma was commissioned to build the 14 new internally lit cases for the Peoria Riverfront Museum's Center for American Decoys. They will house over 100 of the nation’s rarest and most beautiful folk art waterfowl decoys. The Farnsworth Group and museum curator Zac Zetterberg, director of the Center for American Decoys, designed the cases.
The Peoria Tribe’s decoy cases will be dedicated at a press conference on Monday, August 26, at 2 p.m. at the Peoria Riverfront Museum.
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Chief Craig Harper of the Peoria Nation. Photo courtesy of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.
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About Chief Harper of the Peoria Nation
Craig Harper serves as Chief of the Peoria Nation and its 3,787 citizens across the United States. Before being elected in 2018 and reelected in 2022, Harper was elected to two terms as Second Councilman. As Chief of the Peoria Tribe, Harper has been instrumental in the development and creation of the Tribe’s Early Childhood Program and the newly constructed Woodland Learning Center. He coordinated the purchase of the Peoria cattle farm and cultivated a pathway for the utilization of Peoria beef throughout the tribe’s national events, restaurants, learning centers, and title VI kitchens. Realizing the needs of domestic violence prevention, child abuse prevention, and drug abuse prevention and recovery, Chief Harper prioritized the initiative and expansion of the Health and Human services department. With the creation of Peoria’s first Cultural Preservation Center, the Tribe now hosts Peoria Language Courses and archiving services. He and his wife Cassie reside in Miami, Oklahoma and have two daughters, Cayden and Carley, both attending college at this time. Find more information at peoriatribe.com.
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The Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma is a confederation of Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankashaw, and Wea Indians united into a single tribe in 1854. The tribes that constitute The Confederated Peorias, as they then were called, originated in the lands bordering the Great Lakes and drained by the mighty Mississippi. They are Illinois or Illini Indians, descendants of those who created the great mound civilizations in the central United States two thousand to three thousand years ago. Find more information at peoriatribe.com.
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The Peoria Riverfront Museum is the only multidisciplinary institution of its kind in the nation combining art, science, history and achievement. The museum is dedicated to using its collections, exhibitions, film planetarium and programming to tell the stories that build confidence; create a culture of lifelong learning; and unleash the full talent and genius of every individual.
Contact Melody Konrad, Peoria Riverfront Museum assistant director of marketing and communications at MKonrad@peoriariverfrontmuseum.org.
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