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December 14, 2015

Duck Valley Indian Reservation of Idaho and Nevada

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The Duck Valley Indian Reservation of Idaho and Nevada is situated in a beautiful, green valley on the Nevada and Idaho border. Descendents of the Western Shoshone and the Northern Paiute occupy the Duck Valley Indian Reservation of Idaho and Nevada. Various bands of the two closely related tribes have jointly utilized the area from time immemorial.

On April 16, 1877, United States President Rutherford B. Hayes established the reservation for the Western Shoshone and on May 4, 1886, United States President Grover Cleveland expanded the Reservation for the Northern Paiute through respective Executive Orders. On July 01, 1910 United States President William H. Taft further expanded the reservation by yet another Executive Order.

In the early days of the Duck Valley reservation the people lived in earthen willow and sagebrush huts. Respective bands of Western Shoshone occupied and revolved on and off the reservation depending on their survival needs and because of the unfulfilled promises of food and supplies from the federal government. Some bands adapted as best they could and others did not want to readily leave their expanded homelands and campsites which were located off the reservation. In 1884, an effort to move the Western Shoshone to the Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho (and open up Duck Valley lands for non-Indian homesteads) was successfully resisted by the headmen of the bands.

The Shoshone and Paiute united at Duck Valley under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 and formed a tribal government through a Constitution and Bylaws which was adopted in 1936. The tribe is now known as the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation.

The Duck Valley Indian Reservation of Idaho and Nevada is in the shape of a square, and almost evenly situated in the two states. The northern 50.2% is in southern Owyhee County, Idaho and the southern 49.8% is in northwestern Elko County, Nevada.

The total land area is 450.391 square miles (1,166.5 km2). 

The reservation population, as of the 2000 census, was 1,265, with over 80% of the population on the Nevada side. Owyhee, Nevada is the only incorporated town. It is located 98 miles (158 km) north of Elko, Nevada and 97 miles (156 km) south of Mountain Home, Idaho.

Notable members of this reservation include Tina Manning, a water rights activist who was married to American Indian Movement chairman, John Trudell, 1972-1979. Pregnant at the time, she died in a house fire, along with her 3 children and her mother, in a fire caused by an arsonist. The crime was never solved.

 

 

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