Past News Items

Award of a $44,965.83 contract for construction of reinforced concrete box culverts on Oaks-Teresita road in Cherokee and Delaware Counties, Oklahoma, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Award of a $33,014.25 bridge and flood-control construction project on the Hoopa Indian Reservation, Humboldt County, California, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project, on the main route to Hoopa Agency, involves the construction of a continuous slab bridge on existing substructures, and protecting levees which will include roadway approaches to the bridge and the developed areas inundated by the floods of the winter of 1955-56. The road is on a school bus route and serves a substantial number of the reservation population.

Amendments to Federal regulations which are designed to bring the oil and gas leasing of Indian lands more into conformity with present industrial practices and still provide Indian owners with adequate protection have been approved, the Department of the Interior announced today.

The Federal regulations governing the United States credit program for Indian tribes are being broadened to permit loans of funds which the tribes can use for the purpose of attracting industry to the vicinity of reservations, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Haumont Contracting Company of Phoenix, Arizona, has been awarded a contract covering construction of about 11 1/2 miles of road on the Navajo Indian Reservation running easterly from Tuba City, Arizona, toward Keams Canyon and Window Rock, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Haumont's bid of $267,721.04 was the lowest of eleven received. The others ranged from $276,725.73 to $419,467.05.

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.

Award of a $216,700 contract to Fairbanks Morse and Company of Portland, Oregon, for irrigation pumps for the Michaud Unit of the Fort Hall, (Idaho) Indian Irrigation Project was announced today by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton.

The project is planned for completion in 1962 at an estimated total cost of $5,500,000.

In line with a commitment made three years ago by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons, Clinton O. Talley, superintendent of the Fort Peck Indian Agency at Poplar, Montana, will transfer March 10 to the comparable position at Mescalero, New Mexico, the Department of the Interior announced today.

Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons today made a public statement on the current status of a claim against the United States filed with the Indian Claims commission in 1948 by the Creek Indian Tribe.

The claim involves compensation for about nine million acres in Georgia and Alabama, ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Fort Jackson in 1814.

Awarding of a $40,880 contract to Erhardt Dahl Andersen of Pocatello, Idaho, for preliminary construction work on the Michaud Unit of the Fort Hall (Idaho) Indian Irrigation Project was announced today by the Department of the Interior.