Indian Steps Museum

    For more than eighty years, Indian Steps Museum has been a place of friendship between people of all nations and colors. The museum is an iconic presence in York County. Thousands of York Countians share fond memories of their first visit to the museum on an elementary school field trip. Thousands more share memories of its Fall Native American Festival, first held in 1983 and continuing on to this day. Indian Steps isn’t operated by the County or State. It’s owned and managed by the Conservation Society of York County, and it relies on contributions from people like you to survive.

    Indian Steps is one of the oldest museums in the United States exclusively dedicated to Native American Culture. Its creator, York attorney John Vandersloot, built “Indian Steps Cabin” in 1912 partly as a way to display the thousands of Native American artifacts he’d collected on the lower Susquehanna’s riverbanks and islands. He had more than 10,000 artifacts embedded in the structure in the form of mosaic designs depicting his romanticized ideas of Native American life. Scenes depicting Native life were also incorporated into many of the museum’s windows. The significance of the “cabin’s” eccentric architecture is recognized by the U.S. Department of the Interior by its listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Its eccentricities also earn its mention in Atlas Obscura.

    Over the cabin’s front door, John Vandersloot placed the inscription, “I entreat all those who pass this way to safely guard and preserve these former possessions of and monuments to an ancient Indian people.” The Conservation Society has upheld this responsibility since 1941. The Conservation Society also owns and maintains the adjacent Ulmer-Root-Haines Memorial Park, a 30-acre wildlife preserve. Its rugged trails reward visitors as they experience the wild, unspoiled beauty of York County’s river hills.

    As a grand “old lady”, the museum, as well as the other structures and the grounds need a lot of tender loving care. As much as we love it, we need your support to care for it. Help us carry John Vandersloot’s vision of a lasting memorial to this area’s Native American legacy into the future as we strive to return his Indian Steps Cabin to its former glory.