50 years ago: Tribe allocates $2 million for construction

The Navajo Tribal Council was in a spending mood, allocating $1,950,000 for building projects.

A total of $640,000 was going to be used for shopping facilities. Another $600,000 was going for motel construction. They were going to use another $200,000 to build an office complex for the Indian Health Service.

BIA Technical Services had done a study which concluded that the biggest need for a motel and a supermarket was in Window Rock. One BIA special survey indicated that St. Michaels was also eager to get one.

Since Window Rock was designated a while back as the headquarters for the Indian Health Service, the study indicated that the design needed to yield a reasonable return in funds for the Navajo Tribe.

Yet, while pushing profits, the study also gave tribal officials an opportunity to do what was right for tribal members by requiring the selected stores to provide reasonable pricing of merchandise.

In other news, John Claw Sr., 56, s former vice chairman of the tribe and one of the first presidents of the Navajo Rights Association died on Jan. 27 at the Ganado Mission.

Claw served as vice chairman from 1951 to Aug. 15, 1972 when he resigned.

After he left the tribe, his main job for 17 years was with the Navajo Rights Association. He fought hard against plans by the BIA to do another reduction of livestock sales. He was a beloved leader and was remembered well not only in the Times but by other newspapers as well.

Meanwhile, the question had come up again — Just how many Navajos are there?

It came up this time because the tribe was making plans to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of 1868 and tribal officials were wondering just how much the tribal population had increased since then.

It turns out that there was no official estimate of how many Navajos were alive in 1868 since many Navajos continued to live on the reservation and were not sent on the Long Walk.

Kit Carson, who took part in the roundup of Navajos, once told a newspaper reporter that he thought there were between 7,000 and 8,000 Navajos  living on the reservation in 1865 but where he came up with that number is anyone’s guess since no one thought about taking a census.

In fact, if they did, it’s doubtful it would be accurate since many Navajo families lived in remote areas hard to get to and others made it a habit of avoiding strangers.

Which bring us to the tribal population in 1968.

Tribal officials had been using a population of 110,000 which was based loosely on tribal census numbers but this was somewhat questionable because many younger Navajos in those days did not get a census number until they were of school age.

Also, the tribe never attempted to count Navajos who lived of the reservation and had never actually been a part of reservation life.

That number was probably not that great but there were some Navajos, for example, who worked for the railroads and had children who may or may not have had census numbers.

In any case, tribe went into its centennial year with a reported 110,000 members.

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