Past News Items

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Neal A. McCaleb today announced he has issued a Notice of Proposed Finding whereby he proposes to decline to acknowledge that the Webster/Dudley Band of Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuck Indians of Dudley, Mass., (petition #68B) exists as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law.

Award of a $43,000 bridge construction project on the Wind River Reservation, Fremont County, Wyoming, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project, on the Fort Washakie-Arapahoe Road, involves the construction of a three-span steel H-beam bridge with concrete deck, making use of the existing abutments and piers, widening the roadway and increasing the loading design.

The road is a school bus route and services a large number of Indian families in an irrigated district and completes a through route between Fort Washakie and Riverton, Wyoming.

WASHINGTON - The new Interior officials confirmed by the Senate last week will be sworn-in by Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton at a ceremony tomorrow, July 17, at 1:15 p.m. The ceremony will take place outside on the Department’s rooftop terrace.

Bureau of Indian Affairs today announced changes in two superintendencies in the Pacific Northwest involving the Yakima, Colville and Klamath agencies.

Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin Gover has reaffirmed the federal trust relationship between the United States and the King Salmon Tribe and the Shoonaq’ Tribe in Alaska and the Lower Lake Rancheria in California after finding that their government-to-government relationship with the U.S. has never been severed.

The Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the Department of the Interior announced today the first set of four awards which will hereafter be made annually "in recognition of long and outstanding services in the preservation, encouragement and development of the arts and crafts of the American Indians."

The 1958 awards, consisting of certificates of appreciation, are being presented today in Gallup, New Mexico. Recipients, and the categories for which they won, include:

The Quileute Tribe of LaPush, Washington, today became the first federally recognized tribal nation to contract with the Federal Telecommunications Service to receive low rates and reliable service for voice, data, and video transmission service.

Award of two contracts totaling $59,370.47 to complete the storage tank rehabilitation and the range-water supply phases of the Indian Bureau's development program on the Papago Indian Reservation, Arizona, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The Devil's Lake Sioux Tribe of North Dakota has officially changed its name to SPIRIT LAKE TRIBE, Ada E. Deer, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs announced today.

According to the elders of the Tribe, who maintain the oral history of the lake for which the Tribe was named, it was always known to the Sioux as "Spirit Lake." Therefore, for members of the Tribe it has always been considered wrong to refer to the lake as "Devil's Lake."

Improved safeguards for the property interests of both individual Indians and tribes were announced today by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons. The Department of the Interior made public his statement on the Indian Bureau's policy governing sales of individually owned Indian lands.