Walker River Reservation

The people here are the Agai Dicutta Numu—the Trout Eaters—Northern Paiute who have lived in the Walker Lake basin since time immemorial, sustained by the great cutthroat trout of the river and lake and by pine nuts gathered each fall. The land around the lake was set aside in 1859, and President Grant formally established the reservation in 1874. Its hardest story is recent: a century of upstream diversions has shrunk Walker Lake and turned it too salty for its namesake fish. The tribe at Schurz is working to bring the trout back.

What the plaque says

Although the area around Walker Lake in the Utah Territory was set aside for “Indian purposes” in 1859, it was not until 15 years later that President Grant signed the executive order formally establishing the Walker River Indian Reservation, on March 19, 1874. Indian Agent Calvin Bateman reported on August 31, 1874, that the reservation “is the home of at least six hundred Pah-utes, who if absent at all, are only so temporarily. Here the government has promised them an abiding-place, and justice and honor demand that the compact remain inviolate. I am glad that the executive order ….. reaffirms the obligation and sets at rest the question of its perpetuity.” In 1974 over 500 tribal members lived on the reservation. The total land area, including the northern end of Walker Lake, exceeds 300,000 acres, as it did in 1874.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sand Mountain — 33 mi
  Nevada's largest dune — a 600-foot mountain of singing sand, a buried Pony Express station, and a butterfly found nowhere else

More markers nearby

• Mineral County — 18 mi
• Wabuska — 24 mi
• Wilson Canyon — 24 mi
• Pony Express Route- 1860 Sesquicentennial 2010 — 26 mi