Past News Items

Top elected officers of 29 Indian tribes from Oklahoma, Kansas and Mississippi have been invited to meet with Commissioner of Indian Affairs Glenn L. Emmons at Dallas, Texas, in a series of sessions beginning December 3 and ending December 13, the Department of the Interior announced today.

The twofold purpose of the meetings is to give the tribal representatives an Opportunity for discussing local problems with Commissioner Emmons and to afford the Commissioner an opportunity to explain more fully the present aims and policies of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Awarding of a $409,300 negotiated contract to the Department of Public Instruction, State of South Dakota, was announced today by W. Barton Greenwood, Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

In the second of three bid openings this month, the Navajo Indians received total bonus bids of $3,247,094.91 for oil and gas leases on 82,200 acres of tribally owned land in San Juan County, New Mexico, Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today.

In a previous bid opening November 1 for leases on other lands in the "four corners" area of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico the Navajos received $27,476,212.95 on approximately 102,000 acres of tribal land and 1,100 acres of "allotted" or individually owned land.

Bonus bids of over $27,000,000 were received for oil and gas leases on about 103,000 acres of' Navajo Indian land near the “four corners" area of Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today.

The bids, which were opened November 11 at the Indian Bureau's Window Rock (Ariz.) agency office, represented the highest offering ever made for oil and gas leases on Indian lands at a single sale, Acting Bureau Commissioner W. Barton Greenwood reported.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today that he has asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs to send one of its forestry experts immediately into northern Idaho for an investigation of timber sale prospects on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation.

A new emergency program for distributing feed grains to Indian stockmen in previously designated drought-stricken areas of the Southwest was announced today by the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior.

Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton announced today that he has asked the Bureau of Indian Affairs to send one of its forestry experts immediately into northern Idaho for an investigation of timber sale prospects on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation.

Stumpage rates to be paid by the Warm Springs Lumber Company, Warm Springs, Oregon, for timber cut under contract since last April 1 on the Schoolie Unit of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation are being increased by approximately 18 percent for ponderosa pine and 44 percent for Douglas fir and other species, the Department of the Interior announced today.

In order to clarify the position of the Department of the Interior with reference to the so-called ''Wyandotte Indian Cemetery" in Kansas City, Kansas, Secretary Fred A. Seaton today issued the following statement:

Appointment of James N. Lowe, Sacramento, Calif., as Chief of the Indian Bureau is newly created Branch of Industrial Development was announced today by the Department of the Interior.