The Winnemucca Indian Colony of Nevada has a reservation at 40°57′58″N117°43′41″W / 40.96611°N 117.72806°W / 40.96611; -117.72806 in Humboldt County, Nevada. The reservation was established on June 18, 1917, and comprises two parcels of land, 20 acres (0.081 km2) enclosed within the urban area of the City of Winnemucca centered on Cinnabar Street, and 320 acres (1.3 km2) of rural land on the southern edge of the city west of Water Canyon Road. In 1990, 17 tribal members lived on the reservation.[2] In 2022, a court filing reported that the colony consisted of 28 tribal members.[3]
Recent history
In 2007, the Winnemucca Indian Colony joined non-Natives from Utah in suing the United States to prevent the detonation of 700 tons of explosives at the Nevada Test Site, which is on ancestral Western Shoshone lands.[4] In the 1940s, members of the tribe had been forcibly removed from their lands, which were taken over by the Nevada Test Site, where nuclear bombs were tested from 1951 to 1993. The tribe considers the removal and subsequent nuclear weapons testing on their lands as a violation of the 1863 Western Shoshone Treaty of Ruby Valley. The test, called Divine Strake, was eventually cancelled.[5]
The Winnemucca Indian Colony of Nevada's tribal headquarters is located in Winnemucca, Nevada. Judy Rojo is the Tribal Chairman recognized by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.[1][7] The tribe is governed by a five-person tribal council.[2]
^Bartell Ranch LLC, et al. Vs. Ester M. Mccullough, et al., WIC: Motion To Intervene Doc.#180 ( D. Nev. February 11, 2022) ("The Colony is a federally recognized Tribe located in Winnemucca, Nevada. The Colony consists of 28 members whose ancestors derive from the Paiute and Shoshone Nations").
