OPA

A proposal for a National Recreation Area adjoining Yellowtail Reservoir in Big Horn and Carbon Counties, Montana, and Big Horn County, Wyoming, is detailed in a report released today by the Department of the Interior.

A 7l-mile long reservoir will be formed by the construction of the Yellowtail Dam now being built near the mouth of Big Horn Canyon, about 42 miles southwest of Hardin, Montana, by the Bureau of Reclamation as a part of the Missouri River ( Project. The dam is expected to be completed by 1966.

The primary purposes of the Dam are to supply hydroelectric power and provide flood control, downstream irrigation releases, sedimentation storage, fish and wildlife conservation and recreation.

Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony, for the dam last October, Secretary or the Interior Stewart L. Udall called attention to the Region’s potential as a national recreation area because of the striking canyon setting and variety of related interests--scenic, geologic and historical. He also mentioned the economic potential of the area to the Crow Indian Tribe and the Department's desire and interest in working with the Tribe to this end. The Reservation boundary includes about two-thirds of the 195 miles of shoreline.

Lands acquired by the Bureau of Reclamation the project provide only for the operation and protection of primary purposes. The study recommends a boundary extending far enough back from the reservoir to permit adequate management for potential recreation uses and for interpretation and protection of the natural, historical and, archeological values of the area. Crow Indian lands would be included in the development only if their inclusion is approved by the Tribe and the Bureau of Indian Affairs noting as trustees.

"I am enthusiastic about the possibilities this region offers as a national nation area," Secretary Udall said, "and, I am urging the National Park Service to proceed with refinement of boundary and development plans, cooperating fully with the State agency, interested Federal agencies and the Grow Indian Tribe, so that a specific recommendation for establishment of the area can be made this coming fall. To expedite this process, I am suggesting that the Park Service assign one of its staff to the area.

“The report states that the scenery and other natural and historical landmark of Big Horn Canyon and its environs--the mountains, foothills, geologic formation prehistorical sites such as old Fort C. F. Smith have long been recognized and considered worthy of preservation. Ft. smith was an Infantry post established in 1866 as the northernmost of a chain of forts planned to protect travelers of the Bozeman Trail from attacks of hostile Sioux Indians the Fort was abandoned 1868.

The study shows that the Yellowtail Reservoir, combined with the picturesque canyon country, has great potential for sightseeing boat trips, pleasure boating, fishing, diversified camping, hiking, horseback riding and pack trips into the tributary canyons and nearby mountains, and visits to interpretive features having historic, scenic or scientific interest.

The proposed recreation area can be reached from U. S. 87 to the north, Wyoming State Route 14 to the south while the proposed Interstate 90 will provide primary access.

The report recommends concession developments at principal recreation sites to provide services beyond those installed by the National Park Service. A waterfowl management area has been proposed by the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife for the upper end of the reservoir in Wyoming. This area will be developed and managed by the Wyoming State Game and Fish Commission.

The Department of the Interior today announced the completion of an Indian-approved property distribution plan for the Redding Rancheria in Shasta County, California, under terms of a 1958 law.

Under the 1958 enactment the group property of the rancheria, consisting mainly of 30.89 acres of land, was divided among the 44 Indian beneficiaries in accordance with a plan approved by the Indians in referendum ballot. In all cases, unrestricted title was conveyed to the Indians.

With the completion of the plan, the distributes are no longer eligible for special services from the Federal Government because of their status as Indians and the laws of the several States now apply to them as they do to other citizens.

This brings to 14 the total of property distribution plans which have now been completed under the 1958 enactment. Twenty-four others are in process. The law covers 41 Indian rancherias in California but gives the members of each the option of deciding whether or not they wish to adopt property distribution plans.

W. Wade Head, area director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Gallup, New Mexico since 1954, and Fredrick M. Haverland, who has occupied the comparable position at Phoenix, Ariz., since 1955, will exchange positions in the near future, the Department of the Interior announced today.

A native of E1 Dorado, Ark., Head first came with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1937 as principal in charge of schools on the Papago Reservation in southern Arizona. After four years in this assignment he was promoted to superintendent of the Papago Agency and one year later transferred to the War Relocation Authority, a wartime agency responsible for maintaining and ultimately relocating the people of Japanese descent who had been evacuated by the Army from the West Coast. Head served as director of the Colorado River Relocation Center at Poston, Ariz., for two years.

In 1944 he returned to the Indian Bureau as superintendent of the Colville Agency, Nespelem, Wash., where he remained for three years. This was followed by one year of service as district director for the Bureau at Oklahoma City and six years as area director for western Oklahoma with headquarters at Anadarko. He was the first area director appointed for the Gallup Office when it was established in 1954 and has remained there since. He is a graduate of Northeastern State College, Tahlequah, Okla.

A native of Minneapolis, Minn., Haverland joined the Bureau in 1936 as a junior road engineer at the Winnebago Agency, Winnebago, Nebr. Five years later he was promoted to road engineer at the former Truxton Canon Agency, Valentine, Ariz.

In 1942 he transferred to Head's staff on the Colorado River Center at Poston and in 1944 moved to Chicago as the Bureau's warehouse purchasing officer. After two years in this position he was named administrative officer in the office at Billings, Mont., and in 1949 was promoted to assistant area director. He remained in this latter job until 1954 when he shifted to the same position at Muskogee, Okla. In early 1955 he moved to his present position as area director at Phoenix.

He was educated in the public schools of Minneapolis and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1934 with a degree in civil engineering.

Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall today approved a plan proposed by the Crow Indian Tribe of Montana for using a judgment fund of over $9 million awarded to the Tribe by the Indian Claims Commission.

Under the Tribe's plan, the money will be used for a variety of economic development programs.

One million dollars will be set aside for land purchases involving mainly those tracts that are needed to round out farm and range units.

Another $1 million will be set up as a revolving fund to assure fair and economic returns for lands disadvantageously leased under the Crow Competency Act and to recapture for the Indians' use such of these lands as the individual owners may need for their economic and social betterment.

A third sum of $1 million will be used for industrial and other economic development projects on the reservation to provide jobs for landless and other under-employed tribal members.

In addition, $4,350,000 will be available for the social and economic development of Crow families with the understanding that such funds shall be used solely for producing substantial and lasting benefits such as better housing, higher education or capital improvements on farm or ranching enterprises. These funds will not be available, Secretary Udall stressed, for the purchase of nonessential items such as automobiles, or for current living costs.

The approved plan also provides $275,000 for a tribal credit expansion program, $200,000 for education, $120,000 for a multi-purpose tribal building program, and $100,000 for law enforcement.

Unrestricted per capita payments of $100 to each tribal member, totaling $435,000 were approved by Secretary Udall shortly before Christmas. An additional $100 per capital distribution will be made this month and a $50 distribution in March.

The proposal approved by Secretary Udall today was embodied in ten resolutions approved by the Crow Tribal Council on February 2.

Appointment of Kendall Cumming, land operations officer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Fort Defiance, Ariz., as superintendent of the Jicarilla Apache Agency, Dulce, N. Mex., effective August 19, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

He succeeds the late John B. Keliiaa, who died in Washington, D. C., last January.

Born at Nogales, Ariz., in 1925, Cumming attended the University of Arizona as an undergraduate and took a master's degree in range ecology there in 1950. That same year he went to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a range management assistant at Chinle, Ariz., on the Navajo Reservation.

In the years that followed he was assigned to positions of steadily increasing responsibility at other locations on the Navajo and Hopi Reservations. He has been stationed at Fort Defiance for the past five years.

Selection of Edward F. Edzards, a career employee of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as a new superintendent of the Pierre Agency, supervising the Bureau's operations on the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Reservations in South Dakota, effective August 19, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Edzards has been in charge of the Bureau's Cheyenne and Arapaho area field office (formerly designated as a sub-agency since 1955. For six years before that he worked for the Bureau as a farm management supervisor at Pawnee, Clinton and Concho, all in western Oklahoma.

He was born at Paris, Tex., in 1920 and is a graduate of East Texas State College at Commerce. During World War II he served for nearly four years with the Army.

As superintendent at Pierre, Edzards will succeed Owen D. Morken who was recently named assistant area director for the Bureau in its office at Aberdeen, S. Dak.

The Department of the Interior has announced its support of Federal legislation providing for an exchange of lands between the United States and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe of southwestern Colorado in connection with the construction of the Navajo Dam and Reservoir unit of the Colorado River Storage Project.

Some 707.5 acres of Southern Ute tribal land are needed for the reservoir project, the Department explained, and the tribe has expressed a desire to exchange this acreage for public land instead of selling it for cash.

The public lands proposed for exchange already have been selected. They consist of about 2,200 acres on the Archuleta Mesa immediately adjoining the eastern boundary of the reservation.

The proposed exchange, the Department said, would materially reduce trespass problems and include in the reservation a major art of a mesa that forms a natural and integral part of the eastern reservation grazing area. The primary access to the mesa is through the reservation, creating a continuous trespassing problem. Cattlemen, sightseers, hunters, and other unauthorized persons cross Southern Ute land to gain access to public lands on the mesa. Cattle belonging to authorized permittees, who use the public lands for summer pasture, frequently drift onto the reservation lands.

Reduction in these trespass problems is a major consideration in the tribe's desire to acquire the public land. In addition, the tribe can make excellent use of the area as summer range in its cattle grazing program, the Department added.

The bill supported by the Department provides for an exchange of land based on substantially equal values. Under the bill, individuals who have grazing permits, licenses or leases on the public lands which are cancelled because of the exchange would be compensated out of project funds. Owners of range improvements of a permanent nature on the exchanged lands would also be compensated out of project funds.

Following the exchange the tribe would own 2,932 acres out of a total of 4,672 acres on the mesa top~ The balance of the mesa land consists of two private holdings, Colorado school lands, acreage belonging to Jicarilla Apache Tribe, and 960 acres that would remain in public domain.

The bill authorizes the tribe to negotiate with the United States for purchasing the rest of the public acreage in order not to increase the Governments land-management problem.

Robert G. Hart has been promoted from Assistant General Manager to General Manager of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, the Department of the Interior announced today. He succeeds J. Edward Davis, who retires after 12 years of service with the Board and 10 years as General Manager.

A native of San Francisco, California, Hart has had extensive experience in the production, promotion and marketing of arts and crafts. He first served with Indian Arts and Crafts Board in 1952 on a temporary assignment as Production Specialist at Anadarko, Oklahoma, where he organized the production and sales program for the Oklahoma Inter-tribal Crafts Association.

He served again, from 1954 to 1957, as Production Specialist stationed at Santa Fe, New Mexico, rendering specialized and technical production and marketing advice to Indian and Eskimo craft enterprises in the States of New Mexico, Arizona, North and South Dakota, Oklahoma, the Territory of Alaska and others. He rejoined the staff in 1961 as Assistant General Manager in the Board is Washington, D. C. office.

Hart began his career as an employee of commercial banks in San Francisco and Kodiak, Alaska. Following a three-year period in the United States Army, he went to New York City where he served as Treasurer for the Westbury Music Fairs, Inc. He has worked as a consultant for the Industrial Research Advisory Council, Honolulu, Hawaii, and for the State of New York. He has also served as Manager of a Southern Highland Handicraft Guild Shop in New York City, and has worked with the State Department, the United Nations, and the Governments of Haiti and Mexico in the promotion, production, marketing and development of arts and crafts programs. Previous to joining the Board staff in 1961, he was Editor for the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York. He is the author of two books and has also written numerous magazine articles, pamphlets and brochures.

Davis began his career with the Board on May 1, 1950, as Arts and Crafts Specialist at the Cherokee Agency, North Carolina, and in July of that year, was appointed Executive Officer. Transferred to Washington in December 1950 as Business Manager, he was appointed the General Manager in February 1952. A native of Kentucky, Davis is a craftsman with wide experience in teaching crafts and as a craft shop owner and manager. Before joining the Federal Service, he was associated with the Southern Highland Handicraft Guild in North Carolina for several years in various administrative capacities and was named Director of the organization in 1948.

The Indian Arts and Crafts Board is an agency of the Government created by an Act of Congress in 1935 to promote the economic welfare of Indian people through development of their arts and crafts and expansion of the market for such products.

An unusually large volume of legislation that will bring far-reaching benefits to American Indians was enacted by the recently adjourned 87th Congress, Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall said today.

During its first and second sessions in 1961 and 1962, Secretary Udall pointed out, Congress enacted 885 public laws and 61 of these involved Indian matters. Appropriations for the programs of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the two years totaled $358,699,000, more than half going for education and construction of schools, and for the Indian health program of the United States Public Health Service an additional $126,464,000.

Among the outstanding laws that will benefit Indians, Secretary Udall cited one increasing the authorized amount of annual appropriations for the Indian Bureau's adult vocational training program from $3.5 million to $7.5 million, another increasing the authorization for the Bureau's revolving loan fund to finance Indian economic enterprises from $10 million to $20 million, and a third which extends the life of the Indian Claims Commission for an additional five years to 1967.

In enacting the Area Redevelopment Act of 1961, Secretary Udall added, Congress explicitly made Indian reservations eligible for assistance under its provisions and many have already benefited from AHA grants for economic development studies and for worker training. In a more recent enactment Congress made Indian tribes eligible for loans from the Housing and Home Finance Agency for the construction of community facilities, such as common meeting houses and public utilities.

Under the recently enacted Federal Aid to Highways Act, the authorization for work on roads serving Indian reservations was increased from the current level of $12 million to $16 million in 1964 and $18 million in 1965.

In addition, many laws were enacted that will bring benefits to particular tribal groups.

One of these was the act authorizing the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project which will provide for the irrigation of 110,000 acres of Navajo land in northwest New Mexico. When completed, the project is expected to benefit 17,000 tribal members through new' farming opportunities and associated commercial enterprises.

Two other laws will greatly benefit the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Sioux Tribes of South Dakota in recognition of the acquisition of some of their lands for the Big Bend Dam and Reservoir on the Missouri River. In addition to direct damages and reconstruction settlements, the laws provide for rehabilitation funds totaling about $5.7 million ($3.8 million for Crow Creek and $1.9 million for Lower Brule) to help in making necessary community adjustments. The $2,250 per person figure used in determining the rehabilitation funds, Secretary Udall pointed out, is the most generous of all such land-taking settlements in the Missouri Basin.

Another law authorized financial assistance totaling $1,098,000 over a five-year period to Menominee County, Wisconsin, which is the successor to the Menominee Indian Tribe. Purpose of the grants is to cushion the tribe’s transition to unrestricted status under a law enacted in 1954.

Federal lands totaling 71,500 acres were transferred under laws of the 87th Congress to several Indian pueblos of New Mexico, the Zuni and Jicarilla Apache Tribes of the same State, the Cocopah’s of Arizona, the Crow Creek Sioux of South Dakota, the Eastern Cherokees of North Carolina, and the Quinault’s of Washington.

Leasing of Indian lands for periods up to a maximum of 99 years was authorized on the Dania Reservation of Florida, the Southern Ute Reservation of Colorado, and the Colorado River Reservation of Arizona and California. These laws are expected to benefit the Indians by facilitating leases which involve substantial amounts of invested capital.