Past News Items

To enable the Navajo Tribe to expand its industrial development program, Under Secretary Hatfield Chilson has signed an order transferring 75 acres of the Coconino National Forest, near Flagstaff, Arizona, to the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The withdrawal was arranged by the Department's Bureau of Land Management.

Indian income from minerals other than oil and gas seems headed for a record high total in the fiscal year which ends June 30, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons said today in an informal report to Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton.

THE AMERICAN INDIAN TODAY

Because of the warmly sympathetic interest which your National Society has taken in the welfare of our Indian citizens over a period of many years, I consider it a real privilege and an honor that you have invited me to speak to you here today on my favorite subject.

Significant advances in Indian education and a broadening of economic opportunities for tribal members were achieved in the fiscal year which ended last June 30, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons reported to Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton. The report is included in the Department's annual report for Fiscal 1956 released today.

Acting Secretary of the Interior Elmer F. Bennett today asked Secretary of Defense Neil F. McElroy to help speed Army payments of money to Indians for land which the Federal Government took for reservoir projects.

The money is owed to three Indian groups in North Dakota and South Dakota. It totals $7,623,888 for 73,500 acres of land taken for two different projects.

Award of a $30,934.75 construction contract for irrigation improvement work on the Southern Ute Indian Reservation in southwestern Colorado was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract covers the erecting of a 40-inch diameter steel pipe siphon approximately 670 feet long across Dry Creek Wash, located in the vicinity of Ignacio, Colorado, as part of the Indian Bureau's Pine River Irrigation Project.

Appointment of James E. Hawkins, former executive director of the Alaska Rural Development Board, as Area Director at Juneau for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in charge of its Alaskan operations, was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton.

The award of a $439,600 contract for adding seven classrooms and a 500-seat gymnasium to an Indian school plant at Fort Yates, North Dakota was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The successful bidder was Kyburz Construction Company of Aberdeen, South Dakota. Nine higher bids ranging from $452,990 to $497,800 were received.

Standing Rock School, operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has a present enrollment of 133 boarding and 157 day pupils in grades 1 through 12.