OPA

Award of a $443,181.87 contract for the construction of 14.375 miles of highway on the Navajo Indian Reservation in the Apache County, Arizona area was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project will provide an all-weather highway on a section of Route 8, which runs north and south and leads into a vast central portion of the reservation in Arizona. The new road will serve an area of more than 2,500 square miles where no improved roads exist at the present time.

Pecos Valley Construction Company and Witt and Ross, Inc., of Carlsbad, New Mexico, were the successful bidders. Eight higher bids were received, ranging in price from $498,780.75 to $618,024.22.

Award of four contracts aggregating $474,881.48 for road improvement work on Indian reservations in South Dakota was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Two of the jobs are on the Pine Ridge Reservation, one at Rosebud and one at Crow Creek.

One Pine Ridge contract for $203,479.43 covers all-weather surfacing of 8.9 miles of road from Kyle south towards Batesland to provide for all-weather travel for school buses, mail route, and travel needs of 200 Indian families in the area. It is part of the main access route from U. S. Highway 18 located in the eastern part of the reservation. The contract also includes 5.2 miles of road between Rockyford and Manderson to complete an all-weather road between the two communities and directly serve more than 100 Indian families for mail route, school bus, farm-to-market and intercommunity travel. J. F. England's Sons, Inc., and Robt. Millard of Rapid City were the low and successful bidders.

The other Pine Ridge contract for $166,805.75 covers 10.2 miles of road in the vicinity of Wanblee. This contract will provide an all-weather access road from State Highway 73 to the Wanblee Indian community and directly serve more than 200 Indian families for mail route, school bus, and farm-to-market travel. The firm of R. C. Van Houten and Sons of Rapid City was the successful bidder with the lowest of six bids received.

A $68,616 contract for asphalt paving of 7.177 miles of the Rosebud Mission Road on the Rosebud Reservation in Todd County, was won by low bidder, Carlson Lien Construction Company of Rapid City, S. Dak. This work will provide asphalt pavement on the Rosebud-Mission road which is the main access road from the Rosebud Indian community and hospital to U. S. Route 18 just west of Mission, S. Dak. The road will also greatly benefit the school bus route between the Rosebud community and Mission High School.

The fourth contract of $35,980.30 is for reconstruction and repaving of 1.508 miles of the Pierre Indian School street system on the Crow Creek Reservation, Pierre, S. Dak. The Job will provide needed improvements to roads on the school grounds caused by the increased traffic resulting from the relocation of the agency headquarters from Ft. Thompson to Pierre. Dakota Asphalt Sales Corporation of Sioux Falls, was given the contract and submitted the lowest of the three bids received.

Nearly 78 percent of the 2,133 enrolled members of Oregon’s Klamath Indian Tribe have elected to withdraw from the tribal organization and receive a cash payment for their proportionate share of the tribal assets, Under Secretary of the Interior Hatfield Chilson announced today in approving the final results of a tribal election held in April.

Mr. Chilson approved the results in a letter to T. B. Watters, chairman of the management specialists administering the program under the Klamath Termination Act of 1954.

The final results differ only slightly from the preliminary returns announced on April 28. A total of 1,659 or 77.778 percent of the enrolled members have elected to withdraw and 474 or 22.222 percent are remaining. Of the latter group only 80 executed valid ballots to remain. The 394 others are remaining by default.

The Department of the Interior announced today two personnel moves involving superintendents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in North Dakota and South Dakota.

Owen D. Morken, who has been superintendent of the Fort Berthold Agency, New Town, N. Dak., since 1957, will move on October 13 to the comparable position at Pierre Agency, Pierre, S. Dak. He will replace Christian H. Beitzel who retired August 31.

At Fort Berthold Agency Mr. Morken will be succeeded on October 16 by Homer M. Gilliland who has for the past six years been land operations officer of the Colorado River Agency, Parker, Arizona.

Mr. Morken first joined the Indian Bureau as educational adviser in ACCC camp at Bemidji; Minn. in 1939. Subsequently he served in both educational and highway work at various locations in Minnesota and Arizona before his appointment as Fort Berthold superintendent three years ago. He was born at Bemidji in 1911 and graduated from the State Teachers' College there in 1934. Prior to coming with the Bureau, he worked for five years with the Minnesota Highway Department.

Mr. Gilliland has been with the Bureau since 1943 when he was appointed as principal-teacher at the Cherokee Agency in North Carolina. After two years in this post he was named soil conservationist at the same agency and served until 1954 when he transferred to Colorado River. He was born at Tremont, Miss., in 1912 and graduated from Mississippi State University in 1934.

Mr. Beitzel joined the Bureau in 1936 as school principal at Fort Berthold Agency, and was later named superintendent of that agency. Subsequently he served as superintendent of the Pipestone Agency, Minn.; the Turtle Mountain Consolidated Agency, N. Dak,; the Winnebago Agency, Nebr.; and the Pierre Indian School.

Award of a $375,798 contract for construction work that will nearly double the capacity of Indian school facilities at Canoncito, New Mexico, 18 miles west - of Albuquerque, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

Canoncito School, operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has a present enrollment of 62 day pupils. When completed, the enlarged facilities will provide for 120 day pupils.

The contract provides for the construction of two additional classrooms, a kitchen and multipurpose building, two duplex living quarters, the remodeling of the existing school building, and the improving of utilities.

Anchor Construction Company, of Roswell, New Mexico, was the successful bidder for the contract. Three higher bids, ranging from $385,400 to $401,584, were received.

Award of a $1,119,100 contract for the expansion and improvement of Federal Indian school facilities on the Navajo Reservation at Teec Nos Pos, Arizona, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The project involves an enlargement in the capacity of the existing boarding school at Teec Nos Pos to provide space for 334 Indian pupils. When completed, it will relieve the present overcrowding and furnish educational opportunities for 252 additional Navajo youngsters.

The work is scheduled for completion in the fall of 1961.

The contract provides for the construction of two dormitories for the pupils, an 11-classroom school building, a kitchen-dining hall to seat 160 students and 28 employees I quarters.· The job also includes remodeling of the existing school to nine bedroom apartments for staff personnel, as well as necessary utilities, roads, and other site work.

The successful bidder was H. R. McBride Construction Co. of Farmington, New Mexico. Eleven higher bids were received ranging from $1,179,900 to $1,358,088.

Award of two contracts totaling $59,370.47 to complete the storage tank rehabilitation and the range-water supply phases of the Indian Bureau's development program on the Papago Indian Reservation, Arizona, was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The $29,509 storage tank rehabilitation contract provides for pneumatically placing concrete linings in seventeen storage tanks and stock troughs presently in need of repair. The tanks will provide storage of stock water in the foothills areas of the reservation that are now lacking stock water developments. Successful low bidder was the M. M. Sundt Construction Company, Tucson, Arizona.

The second contract, of $29,861.47, provides for furnishing and installing 19 windmills and nine towers mostly in the foothills areas. Nine of the windmills will replace worn-out and obsolete structures. The contract was awarded to the Arizona General Supply Company, in Prescott.

The foothills regions of the Papago Reservation are some of the better forage producing areas and completion of the projects will result in more proper utilization of forage and more uniform distribution of livestock.

Award of a $40,905.34 road construction project to improve transportation facilities in Beltrami County, Minnesota, on the Red Lake Indian Reservation was announced today by the Department of the Interior.

The 2.84-mile project is part of an over-all plan by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to improve the 22-mile link between Minnesota Trunk Highway No. 1 and the Village of Ponemah. The road is constantly used by the school bus and by local Red Lake commercial fishermen, and is the only outlet for the residents of the Village.

The successful bidder for the contract was Herbert Holthusen of Grygla, Minnesota. Five other bids, ranging from $43,722.59 to $55,724.16, were received.

Sales of timber from lands belonging to Indian tribes and individual Indians brought the owners a record high income of $12,388,000 in the fiscal year 1960, or 23 percent more than the 1959 income, the Department of the Interior announced today.

The volume of timber cut under contract was also at the record level of 597 million board feet, an increase of 63 million board feet over the 1959 total. Not included in these figures are the data for Klamath Indian Reservation, in Oregon, where sales are affected by the approaching termination of all Federal trust responsibility.

Sawmills owned by four Indian tribal groups--the Menominee of Wisconsin, :the Red Lake Chippewa of Minnesota, the Navajo of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and the White River Apache of Arizona--converted to lumber about 50 million board feet of the total cut.

Over the country as a whole, there are nearly six million acres of commercially valuable Indian timberland, exclusive of the Klamath Reservation. Eighty-two percent is owned by tribal groups and the balance by individual Indians.

The record of commercial logging operations on Indian lands extends back over a hundred years. The concept of sustained yield and multiple-use became controlling factors in the management of these forests at the turn of the century.

The forests are factors in the economy of many Indian tribes and individual Indians. They provide cash income to the Indians from sales of the standing timber, and employment in the timber harvest. The timber sales, under sustained yield management, are also a stabilizing influence on the dependent wood using industries and the communities that serve them.

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.

The construction work is part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' program for the improvement of Indian roads to standards acceptable for incorporation into county road systems. Upon completion of the construction of the Hoopa Agency Loop Road this structure will become a county bridge. The structure will be located on Supply Creek near the old Agency Hospital.

Successful bidders were W. H. Lindeman & Sons, Inc., of Red Bluff, California. Three other bids were received ranging from $38,364.75 to $39,996.50.