Museum of Indian Art and Library of the Dyckman Institute, 1935.

In 1926 Inwood historian and local archeologist Reginald Pelham Bolton (under the auspices of the Dyckman Institute) opened a “The Indian Life Reservation” in Inwood Hill Park. The area was to be staffed with actual Native Americans to depict the lifestyle of the Lenape, the indigenous community that lived in Manhattan for the centuries prior to the arrival of Europeans. The "reservation" included the Native American staff (Cherokees, Mohawks and other tribe members) reenacting traditional life: making beads, pottery, and headdresses and performing ceremonial dances and competitions. Bolton had also been digging for artifacts in the park since the turn of the century and continued to do so during the years of his ill-conceived (though popular at the time) experiment.

As a visitors center (remember this was a VERY different, less enlightened period) the Institute took over the 120-year-old cottage that sat next to the giant tulip tree that once graced this park. The structure also housed a "native" pottery studio

The 20-acre reservation closed sometime in the 1930s, though Native American dances were still ongoing as late as 1938.