The Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation is a United States reservation in northwestern Nevada ~approximately 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Reno, in Washoe, Storey, and Lyon Counties. It lies almost entirely in Washoe County (99.88%), with but tiny amounts of land in the other two counties (at the southern end, near the city of Fernley). It is governed by the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe (Cui Ui Ticutta). In 1993, the population of the reservation was 1,603 individuals. At that time there were 2,253 enrolled members of the tribe. The 2000 census reported a population of 1,734.
The reservation has 742.2 sq mi (1,922 km2) in land area, and includes all of Pyramid Lake, and all of the Truckee River from the Big Bend north. The reservation is centered on Pyramid Lake, and the lake itself comprises 25% of the reservation's area. The reservation also includes a sliver of Winnemucca Lake, most of the Lake Range, portions of the Virginia Mountains and Pah Rah Range and the southern end of the Smoke Creek Desert.
There are three communities on the reservation. Sutcliffe is located on the western shore of the lake, Nixon is at the southern end of the lake, and Wadsworth, the largest, is located near the Big Bend of the Truckee at the southern end of the reservation, just north of the non-reservation town of Fernley. There are a few outlying ranches along the Truckee River between Wadsworth and Nixon. Nixon is the seat of tribal government.
The reservation land was first set aside for the Northern Paiute by request of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1859. The reservation was not surveyed until 1865. The status of the reservation was very uncertain until President Ulysses S. Grant affirmed its existence by executive order on March 23, 1874. At that time the creation of reservations by the executive branch was novel - most previous reservations were created by treaty or congressional legislation. Subsequent court decisions have affirmed the validity of reservations created by the executive branch, and have set the establishment date for the Pyramid Lake Reservation at 1859, not 1874. This earlier date is important both with regards to the priority date of tribal water rights, and the status of non-tribal claims to land within the reservation. The tribe has fought a long series of legal battles on both these issues.
As of 1970, one source claimed that residents of the reservation included descendants of Chief Winnemucca.
Read more about Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation: Environmental Factors
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“So universal and widely related is any transcendent moral greatness, and so nearly identical with greatness everywhere and in every age,—as a pyramid contracts the nearer you approach its apex,—that, when I look over my commonplace-book of poetry, I find that the best of it is oftenest applicable, in part or wholly, to the case of Captain Brown.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“These beginnings of commerce on a lake in the wilderness are very interesting,—these larger white birds that come to keep company with the gulls.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I am not sure but all that would tempt me to teach the Indian my religion would be his promise to teach me his.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Music is so much a part of their daily lives that if an Indian visits another reservation one of the first questions asked on his return is: “What new songs did you learn?””
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)