An act passed by Congress on January 24, 1923 authorized the Secretary of the Interior to establish and maintain an Indian boarding school on the site of Fort Apache. The first students were Dine' (Navajo) children brought from the Navajo Reservation to the north. During the 1930's, Ndee (Apache) children began to make up the majority of the student body. In 1960, public schools under the administration of the Arizona State Department of Education opened in Whiteriver, and most local children transferred to the new schools. T.R. School again housed a multi-tribal student body until the 1980's, when the White Mountain Apache Tribe took administrative control of the school. This school building was built around 1932.