Western Navajo Indian Agency (Arizona)

The Western Navajo Agency is one of five currently operating administrative jurisdictions of the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the Navajo Reservation. It is located in Tuba City, Arizona and its supervising office is the Navajo Area Office. A map of the roads on the Navajo Reservation, created in 2008, is available online. The Western Navajo Agency is listed on this map as the Tuba City Agency.

Indian Tribes Associated With This Agency
Navajo, Hopi, Paiute

History
The original Navajo Agency was established in 1852. The Western Navajo Agency was established in 1901 when the old Navajo Agency was subdivided. It operated as an agency until about 1920, when it became the Tuba City Subagency. In 1935, it was consolidated with other Navajo agencies to form one agency called the Navajo Service, with headquarters at Window Rock, Arizona. In 1949, the Window Rock Area Office was formed and the Western Navajo Agency eventually regained its independent status.

Records
Agencies and subagencies were created as administrative offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and its predecessors. Their purpose was (and is) to manage Indian affairs with the tribes, to enforce policies, and to assist in maintaining the peace. The names and location of these agencies may have changed, but their purpose remained basically the same. Many of the records of genealogical value (for the tribe and tribal members) were created by and maintained by the agencies.

Some of the historical records of this agency, 1902-1917, are in the Pacific Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Laguna Niguel, California. A few records for the Tuba City Subagency, which was a successor to the Western Navajo Agency, are also in the archives in Laguna Niguel and in the National Archives Rocky Mountain Region (Denver), Colorado.

Annual Indian Census Rolls were taken at this agency for 1905, 1915-1920, 1922-1927, and 1929 thru 1935. These rolls have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of their Microcopy Number M595, rolls 640 thru 645. Copies of these records are also available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their ). These census rolls are also available online at Ancestry.com's subscription web site.

Records Available through the Family History Library
Vital Records part of Indian Census Rolls above


 * Birth and Death records 1925-1933 FHL film 583103 Birth and Death records 1928-1934 FHL film 583104


 * 1937 Census Western Navajo reservation FHL film 579691 (this film is part of the above collection)

Microfilm copies of ...Narrative and Statistical Reports... for the Western Navajo Agency, 1907-1935, are included in National Archives Microcopy M1011, Rolls 166-167, available in the National Archives system and in the collections of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, beginning with their.

Web Sites
List of schools under the Western Navajo Agency.