President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt signed the act into law.
[5] Its first classes were held in February, and it was controlled by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).
[8] In 1947 the BIA initially was to close the school, but instead kept it open with reduced enrollment.
[11] In June 1993 it became a tribally controlled school as the Wahpeton Indian School Board, Incorporated assumed ownership of the school, and from that point forward the Office of Indian Education Programs (OIEP), later called the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE), began providing grants.
In some cases families with domestic problems send their children to Wahpeton so that when the situations are resolved, the children may return and the family may save face, versus the loss of reputation and permanency from foster care.