TAHLEQUAH, Okla. – A mystery was unearthed at an Oklahoma clothing store this week.
Officials discovered a pair of tiny, rusted handcuffs.
The owner of Boulevard, a men’s clothing store in Tahlequah, says the tiny cuffs were found beneath the store when phone lines were being installed.
Initially the owner and the employees though they found something exciting, but now she believes the chains could have a much more tragic story.
The store owner, Alyssia Hilton, said she found pictures that led her to believe the handcuffs were used for small children.
“We found, looking at pictures that looked exactly like them, that they were actually handcuffs used for small children to assimilate Native American children into boarding schools,” said Hilton.
A professor and archaeologist at the University of Tulsa looked up the possible origin of the cuffs.
“That style didn’t really match anything that I saw, but it closely matched styles from 1900s and later,” said Dr. Thomas Foster from the University of Tulsa.
Hilton says she plans to contact a historian to have the handcuffs authenticated.
