Past News Items

Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay today said the Department has submitted for congressional consideration a series of bills providing for orderly termination of Federal administration of Indian Affairs in eight tribal jurisdictions.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs today awarded a contract to Southern Cafeteria Operating Company, Birmingham, Alabama, for the provision of noonday meals during the coming school year at five Federal day schools on the Cherokee Reservation in western North Carolina.

Southern Cafeteria’s bid of 44 cents per meal was the lowest of those received in response to invitations issued by the Indian Bureau on July 22. The bids were opened August 15.

Headquarters for the Menominee Indian Agency in Wisconsin will be transferred as soon as possible from Neopit to Keshena, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay announced today.

Primary reason for the move, which has been discussed with Menominee tribal representatives over the past several months, is to separate the Indian Bureau's governmental functions at the agency from the operations of the Menominee tribal lumber mill located at Neopit.

Award of a $201,750 contract for Indian education to the Department of Public Instruction, State of North Dakota, was announced today for the Department of the Interior by W. Barton Greenwood, Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

In accordance with their own expressed wishes, about 2,100 Indians of western Oregon are taking over full control of their ow property and will no longer receive special Federal services because of their status as Indians under a proclamation signed this week (August 13) by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton today announced the signing of a public land order which makes available for oil and gas leasing approximately 5,300 acres of tribally owned land on the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in Utah.

A new set of grazing regulations for the huge Navajo Indian Reservation of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, providing for greater Indian participation in administration and enforcement, was announced today by Acting Secretary of the Interior Clarence A. Davis.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons announced today that he has instructed the Indian Bureau’s area office at Billings, Montana, to withhold approval of additional sales of restricted Indian lands on the Crow Reservation in Montana that violate limitations imposed by the Act of June 4, 1920 (41 Stat. 751).

The Department of the Interior today announced approval of a coal mining and electric power development lease by Utah Construction Company, San Francisco, Calif., embracing some 24,000 acres on the Navajo Indian Reservation just south of Fruitland, New Mexico.

Assistant Secretary of the Interior Roger Ernst today urged congressional enactment of legislation to authorize extension of the irrigation distribution system of the Coachella Valley County Water District of Riverside County, California, to about 10,000 acres of Indian land on the Augustine, Cabazon and Torres-Martinez Reservations.