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Show 144 Years of Trouble, Years of Hope, 1934-1960 they found out that it was also proposed that tribal funds be used to purchase private lands within this area. These lands had been Ute-owned until 1898. A bill to add about seventy-five thousand acres within the Willow and Hill Creek drainages to the Uintah and Ouray Reservation was introduced in Congress in the summer of 1935. Under this bill the minerals in the area were reserved to the United States. This bill and several similar bills were stalled in Congress for the next several sessions. In 1938 the BIA began administering the withdrawn Uncom-pahgreland. Use of the land was by permit only, with the fees going to the People. White ranchers contended that the BIA had no such authority. The ranchers deliberately grazed stock on the lands without permit. This brought on law suits, which were eventually decided in favor of the Ute People.10 In the meantime, the Uintah and Ouray Business Committee began, with BIA encouragement, a program of purchasing land within the Uncompahgre Grazing Reserve. For the next six years about $300,000 was paid for land, $170,000 of this out of tribal funds. In September 1941 the Secretary of Interior restored to the Uintah and Ouray Tribe 217,000 acres of opened and unsold lands within the reservation. Another order was signed which gave jurisdiction of most of the acres withdrawn in 1933 to the United States Grazing Service. The BIA retained control only over that area proposed to be restored to the reservation (the Grazing Reserve).1' It was not until 1948 that legislation was finally passed to "extend the boundaries of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation." The "Hill Creek Extension" was those lands in the Uncompahgre Grazing Reserve, about one-third of the Uncompahgre Reservation (726,000) acres). The boundary line was extremely crooked in order to avoid mineral lands and non-Ute owned lands.12 Additional tribal funds were then used to purchase state-owned lands and water rights within the boundaries. (See Map p. 142) Ute Claims Cases In the twentieth century the People acquired a reputation of being "the rich Utes." They had well over $ 1,000,000 on deposit in |