Treaty cession document includes Wood River Valley
Until recently, the final displacement of the Mixed Band of Native Americans, the group that gave birth to Sacajawea, was thought to be the last chapter in a long history of land grabs and betrayals at the hands of the federal government.
But the recent discovery of a historical document in the National Archives shows that territory slated for cession to the Mixed Band in 1870 was far larger than once assumed and included the lower Wood River Valley, including land under the present-day towns of Ketchum, Sun Valley, Hailey and Bellevue.
The document was found in 2007 by a then-student of Orlan Svingen, WSU professor of history. It was written and signed by all concerned parties. It indicates that the Mixed Band once were entitled to claim territory stretching over 31,871 square miles in three states, with 10,072 square miles in southwest Montana, 2,318 square miles in northwest Wyoming and 19,480 square miles in Idaho.
Svingen helped convert the written descriptions contained in the document into a map of the ceded territory.