Past News Items

The Department of the Interior announced today that Thomas H. Dodge, superintendent for the past seven years at San Carlos Indian Agency, San Carlos, Ariz., will transfer on November 26 to Pawhuska, Oklahoma, where he will serve as superintendent of the Osage Agency, replacing Russell G. Fister.

Mr. Fister has retired, effective December 31, after 32 years of service with the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Award of a $76,714 contract for the construction of approximately 36 earth filled detention dams on the Papago Indian Reservation in southern Arizona was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project is part of the over-all Papago Development Program for the social and economic development of the Papago people.

Award of three contracts totaling $1,024,915.10 for road improvement work on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona and in Utah near the "Four Corners" area, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Award of a $624,782 road construction contract that will provide an all-weather bus route to enlarged school facilities at Kayenta, Arizona, on the Navajo Indian Reservation was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The contract, which was awarded to Lyle Price of Flagstaff, covers construction and bituminous surfacing of a 19.2-mile section of road in northern Arizona between Kayenta and Utah State Highway 47 at the Utah Line.

Award of an $85,400 contract for the improvement of the Heart Butte Short Cut Road on the Blackfeet Reservation at Browning, Montana, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project covers the grading and graveling of 7.637 miles of road from the bridge over Two Medicine River to Badger Creek. It is the center section of a route known locally as the Heart Butte Short Cut Road. It is the main traffic route from the all-Indian community of Heart Butte to the agency and serves several public schools in the vicinity of Two Medicine River.

Properties of the Klamath Indian Tribe of Oregon, including the 694,000-acre tribal forest, have been appraised at a "realization value" of $121,659,618, Under Secretary of the Interior Hatfield Chilson said today.

In a letter to Thomas B. Watters of Klamath Falls, management specialist supervising the Klamath termination program under the act of August 13, 1954, Under Secretary Chilson authorized Mr. Watters to proceed immediately with arrangements for a tribal election as provided in the termination statute.

Promotion of H. Rex Lee, Associate Commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to the position of Deputy Commissioner was announced today by Commissioner Glenn L. Emmons, Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Mr. Lee replaces W. Barton Greenwood, who has been Deputy Commissioner since the position was established in 1956, and who is retiring November 1.

Ten plans submitted by Indian rancherias in California for distribution of lands and other assets among the individual members under a 1958 law have now been given final approval by the Department of the Interior, Assistant Secretary Roger Ernst announced today.

In total, the plans provide for distributing 904.79 acres among 137 individual Indians.

Six of the plans have also been ratified by referendum vote among the Indians affected and are now being put into effect.

A $178,907.28 contract for construction of two bridges on Navajo Route 1 in New Mexico was awarded today by the Department of the Interior.

These bridges in San Juan County will replace two timber structures that no longer will carry the heavy traffic which the oil and mining operations in northern Arizona and southeastern Utah have generated.

One 2-span pre-stressed concrete box-girder bridge will be constructed across Rattlesnake Wash west of Shiprock, New Mexico, and one 6-spansteel-girder bridge with a concrete deck will cross the Red Rock Wash.

The Department of the Interior today announced its endorsement of H. R. 6128, a bill that will permit members of the Catawba Indian Tribe of South Carolina to divide their tribal assets and discontinue their special Indian relations with the Federal Government.

The Catawba Indians have requested such legislation and have explicitly approved the provisions of H. R. 6128.