On Thursday, March 2, 1972, the Fort Hall tribes seized upward of 300 cattle off reservation range in the Bannock Creek district, the part of the reservation on the lower course of the creek that runs north out of Arbon Valley. The tribes called it a trespass, and the man they said owned the herd was D. T. "Sod" Williams, who ranched at Arbon. The next day the Idaho State Journal gave the story a short report on page 2.
Sod Williams is well known on this site. Donald Thayne Williams (1922–2001) and his wife, Nelda Ward Williams, ran a cattle ranch at Arbon where they bred and trained quarter horses, and the papers followed them through the show ring and the rodeo arena, as two earlier posts in this series tell: Sod Williams of Arbon and his quarter horses and the Williams family in the arena. The 1972 report names him D. T. Sod Williams, the same initials and nickname the horse-show columns used for him, so there is no doubt it is the same man.
What the tribes did, and why
Their authority for the seizure was their own law and order code. Tribal leaders had complained that when other people's cattle got onto tribal range, the Bureau of Indian Affairs did nothing beyond mailing the owners a letter. Trespassing cattle were turning up on tribal ground so often, according to the tribal attorney, who goes unnamed in the report, that the tribes could no longer bear the cost. Kesley Edmo, who chaired the Fort Hall Business Council, said the tribes had moved on their own, using powers they held within their federal jurisdiction. Until the tribes were paid for the harm to their range and for what it had cost them to seize the animals and keep them fed, the herd would stay in tribal hands.
The report also gave the bureau's side. Ira Dutton, acting superintendent of the agency at Fort Hall, explained the limits on his office. Unless the animals threatened someone's life or property, federal rules gave the bureau no power to take them, and a notice to the owner was the whole of its remedy. To deal with the problem, the council had been urged to use the impounding power written into its own code. By his account Bannock Creek was the worst corner of the reservation for cattle grazing where they had no right to be.
Asked about the ground itself, the tribal attorney said it was Douglas Reed's lease, and that Reed had defaulted. The report does not explain how the cattle came to be there, or whether Reed had any connection with Williams, and none should be assumed. Reed is not otherwise known to this site.
Some background helps. The valley's north end around Pauline and West Fork lies against the reservation line. That line was redrawn more than once: after the cession of 1898, and again when the government bought the West Fork farms in the later 1930s. Grazing on reservation land was leased through the bureau. The Williams ranch probably took in Thomas D. Daniels's old Pauline homestead, as the Daniels family page explains, which would have put the Williams range near the reservation, though the 1972 report does not say where his cattle had come from.
What is not known
The report closes with word that the owners, plural, intended to challenge what the tribes had done. It does not name any owner besides Williams, say how many of the 300-odd head were his, or put a figure on the damages. No later report has been found, so this site does not know whether the ruling was challenged, how much was paid, or when the cattle went home.
On this site: the Ward family, Nelda Williams's family; Pasakwa Huude and other names on Bannock Creek, on the creek and the reservation district named for it; and another valley cattleman's quarrel over range, Lloyd Brower's small range war.
The story as reported
Idaho State Journal, March 3, 1972, page 2. The original article is under copyright; this is our own report of what it said.
Fort Hall tribal officials seized more than 300 head of cattle from reservation range in the Bannock Creek district on Thursday, March 2, 1972. In their account the animals had no right to be there, and they belonged to the Arbon rancher D. T. Sod Williams.
The tribe acted on its own authority, using the impounding provisions of its law and order code. Its attorney, left unnamed, said cattle were being grazed on tribal land without right so commonly that the expense had grown past what the tribe could carry. Business Council chairman Kesley Edmo said the tribe had acted for itself, as its federal jurisdiction allowed, and was "going to exercise our rights."
The tribe would not release the animals until it was paid for the harm done to the land and for what it had spent impounding and feeding the herd.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which leases out grazing on reservation land, had drawn the tribe's criticism too. When cattle trespassed on tribal range, the tribe said, a letter to the owner was the most the bureau ever did. Ira Dutton, acting superintendent of the Fort Hall agency, said the bureau's hands were tied. He pointed to Title 25 of the Code of Federal Regulations: short of a threat to lives or property, the bureau had no power to impound livestock, and in a plain trespass, sending word to their owner was all it could do. Lease conditions were another tool, he said; the Tribal Council could have them added on request. As a remedy, he said, the council had been urged to rely on the impounding power in its own law and order code. No district on the reservation gave the agency more grief over trespass grazing than Bannock Creek, according to Dutton.
When the question of the ground itself came up, the tribal attorney said Douglas Reed held the lease and had defaulted on it.
In its final line the paper said the owners intended to challenge the tribe's decision. It named no owner but Williams and gave no figure for the damages.