The Tule River Tribe is poised to add a sizable chunk of property to the reservation - land that will help address a housing crunch.

The Tribal Council announced Monday that the tribe's purchase of the 855-acre Lowe Ranch is nearly complete.

Tribal officials said the tribe's decision to purchase the property is an effort to increase the size of the Tule River Indian Reservation for tribal housing. The tribe is growing by birth and by those returning home to the reservation, said Neil Peyron, chairman of the Tule River Tribal Council.

The tribe has over 1,500 enrolled members. There are about 300 houses and trailers on the reservation.

"The Tule River Housing Authority currently has a list of 175 tribal families waiting for some form of tribal housing," Peyron said. "Such list is only the tip of the iceberg. The long wait for housing has made many tribal members give up hope of ever living on the reservation."

Sam Cohen, chief counsel for the Tule River Tribe, said the Bureau of Indian Affairs has been informed of the tribe's purchase and initial environmental studies have been completed in anticipation of seeking trust status for the land.

Lowe Ranch is adjacent to the entrance of the Tule River Reservation and is contiguous to the current reservation. The property is not near the property the tribe owns along Highway 190, Cohen said. The tribe is continuing with its plans to develop a casino and hotel on the Highway 190 property.

The land increase would be the first official increase in the reservation's size since its size was reduced in 1878.

The Tule River Reservation was established by executive order with about 55,000 acres on Jan. 9, 1873. On Oct. 3, 1873, a second executive order was signed to remedy the lack of housing and farming sites on the mostly rugged mountain land. This executive order included the watersheds of the North and Middle Forks of the Tule River. On Aug. 3, 1878, the second executive order was rescinded by a third order that reduced the land to that in the area of the river's South Fork.

Tribal officials fought for years to correct what they described as survey fraud in the early 1900s, Peyron said. In the early 1980s, an effort led by former Tribal Chairman Alec Garfield was successful in having these lands returned to the tribe.

"Congress finally rectified this theft of tribal land by returning those portions to the tribe that had become part of the Sequoia National Forest," Peyron said.

The return of this land, excluding privately owned holdings that Congress chose not to purchase for the tribe, returned the reservation to its almost original January 1873 size.

This story was published in The Porterville Recorder on July 13, 2004