Western Shoshone Indian Agency (Nevada)

Indian Tribes Associated With This Agency
Shoshone

History
An official was appointed for the Shoshones in Elko, Lander, Lincoln, Nye, and White Pine Counties in 1869. The Western Shoshone Agency was established in 1878 at Elko, Nevada, and continued to function through the early 1950's. By 1955, it was a sub-agency of the Nevada Agency.

Agent
John How July 1, 1878

Records
Agencies and subagencies were created as administrative offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and its predecessors. Their purpose was (and is) to manage Indian affairs with the tribes, to enforce policies, and to assist in maintaining the peace. The names and location of these agencies may have changed, but their purpose remained basically the same. Many of the records of genealogical value (for the tribe and tribal members) were created by and maintained by the agencies.

Many records of the Western Shoshone Agency, 1869-1952, are in the Pacific Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in San Francisco&lt;ref&gt;Guide to Federal Records, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Record Group 75. Available online.&lt;/ref&gt;, including student registers and attendance records, 1899-1931, and other administrative and financial records.

The 1900 federal census included population schedules for the Western Shoshone Indian Reservation. The census includes the non-Indian employees of the Western Shoshone Agency, as well as many pages of Indian Population Schedules for the native population of the Reservation. They are recorded as District 50, Western Shoshone Agency, in Elko County, Nevada.

Reports of Inspection of the Field Jurisdictions of the Office of Indian Affairs, 1873-1900 have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of Microcopy Number M1070. The reports for Western Shoshone Agency, 1883-1889, are on roll 56 of that Microcopy set. Copies are available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their ).

Annual Indian Census Rolls were taken at this agency for 1885, 1887-1890, and 1892-1939. These rolls have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of their Microcopy Number M595, rolls 646 thru 648. Copies of these records are also available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their ). These census rolls are also available online at Ancestry.com's subscription web site.

The 1891 census roll for the Western Shoshone Agency, although missing in the above set, has been filed and microfilmed with census rolls for the Shoshone Agency, Wind River Reservation, Wyoming. That roll lists 590 Western Shoshone and Paiute Indians living in Nevada. It is also included in Ancestry.com's digitized set under the Shoshone Agency, rather than the Western Shoshone Agency (their images 112-133 for the years 1885, 1890-93, 1895-99.)

Microfilm copies of ...Narrative and Statistical Reports... for the Western Shoshone Agency, 1907-1936, are included in National Archives Microcopy M1011, Rolls 167-168, available in the National Archives system and in the collections of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City (their . Reports for some years are missing.

Records Available Through the Family History Library

 * Employees 1883-1915 FHL Film: 976980 Item 5