50 Years Ago: NFPI – the Navajo Tribe’s greatest economic asset?

Fifty years ago, the Navajo Forest Products Industries was considered the tribe’s most successful enterprise.

If you read the articles that appeared in the Navajo Times in the 1960s – and especially around 1966 – you would have come to the conclusion that NFPI was single handily going to turn the tribe’s economic program around.

Just look at the figures:

In 1966, the company was in its fourth straight year of making a profit. It had an annual payroll of $1.3 million and provided employment for 450 tribal members. Many of the high-paying jobs were held by non-Indians but about 70 tribal members were being trained to hold supervisory positions at the plant in Navajo, N.M.

NFPI was the first large-scale enterprise totally owned by the tribe, according to the Times. It would be so successful that during the next decade, the tribe would spend millions of dollars to duplicate its success by setting up a number of tribal enterprises.

The Times also pointed out that NFPI was also good for Navajo forests.

Before NFPI came into existence, studies showed that about 15 million board-feet of timber was going to waste each year because defective and over-mature trees were not being harvested and “weed” trees were flourishing to the detriment of more desirable species.

We have to point out a couple of things about this and other stories published by the Times during that time period.

The first and primary point was that there were no groups supporting conservation efforts or if there were, they don’t seem to be getting any publicity.

Another thing that should be mentioned is that during the 60s while the paper came under severe criticism for the way it covered tribal politics, no one seemed to care that the paper was very pro-economic development and every time that a new business was created or a economic development program needed to be supported, the Navajo Times was there to provide a supportive article, especially when the business or the program itself had a story already to be published.

In one article from that period, the story and editorial praised NFPI not only for its current operation but for the possibilities that it predicted would happen in the future.

For example, one press release put out by NFPI predicted that one day the tribal enterprise would produce enough fertilizer made from sawdust that it could benefit some 10,000 gardens on the Navajo Reservation.

That same release said plans were being made by NFPI officials to build hundreds of miles of permanent roads through the tribal forest. The roads would not only bring in logging trucks to bring out the lumber but it would provide a way for school buses to bring students.

Another story from 50 years ago told of the first efforts by the BIA to relocate a segment of the Navajo population.

But this was viewed as a success.

In late March 1966, officials for Gallup’s border town dormitory began reporting problems with its sewage lines which were backing up and causing a great deal of concern not only by tribal education officials but by the BIA as well.

The situation became so bad (and smelly as well) that the BIA’s new area director Graham Holmes had to step in and order that all the 500-plus students who were living in the dormitory had to be removed from the dormitories. He ordered that they be bussed to the dormitories at the nearby Fort Wingate elementary and high schools.

The two bed units at the dormitories became the living quarters to as many as four or five students and Holmes said this arrangement would continue until the BIA was able to fix the problems at the Gallup dorms.

“As soon as the buildings are made safe, the students will be returned,” Holmes said.

The BIA managed to find 25 buses somewhere, which were used to transport the students to and from the Gallup schools each day so none of the students would see their grades suffer.

And finally, Annie Wauneka had found another cause.

The councilwoman made an announcement during a health committee meeting that she had been meeting with more than 100 of the employees of the Fort Defiance IHS hospital.

In a meeting with the press, Wauneka said the employees, most of whom were Navajo, were being mistreated. When asked how they were being mistreated, all Wauneka said was that will be made public in the future.

She said she would be working on behalf of the employees and will be meeting with IHS officials in the near future to see if the employee’s grievances could be addressed then rather than having to take further steps.

When asked what further steps the employees were contemplating, Wauneka again refused to say, adding that she hoped that it would not come to that.