The Indian Bureau’s program for stimulating the growth of industry and industrial jobs in the vicinity of Indian reservations in line with over-all Interior Department objectives will be considerably broadened in scope during the fiscal year 1959, Commissioner Glenn L. Emmons announced today.
Three new field offices at Cleveland, Denver, and St. Louis will be opened to serve as contact points with industrial concerns in addition to the office at Los Angeles which has been operating in this capacity for the past year under O. E. Whelan. The Cleveland office will open September 1 and will be headed by Kurt Dreifuss, former chief of the Bureau’s relocation service in Chicago. Plans for opening and staffing the Denver and St. Louis offices have not yet been completed.
The Bureau will also have industrial development specialists at six of its ten area offices to work directly with tribal organizations and local community groups. Four have already been assigned. They are Presley T. LaBreche at Phoenix, Ariz. (covering both Phoenix and Sacramento areas); Stanley R. Thomas at Aberdeen, S. Dak.; Edward T. Kerley at Gallup, N. Mex.; and Edgar L. McVicker at Anadarko, Okla.
Similar appointments will be made later for the area offices at Minneapolis, Minn. and Portland, Oreg. The Portland appointee will also cover the Billings area.
Contracts for on-the-job vocational training of Indians are being continued in effect with plants near Indian reservations at Cherokee, N. C., Gallup, N. Mex., Casa Grande and Kingman, Ariz., McAlester and Holdenville, Okla., Rapid City, S. Dak., and Lac du Flambeau, Ashland, and Manitowish Waters, Wis..
