Middle Park Indian Agency

The Middle Park Agency was established in 1862 for the Grand River, Uinta, and Yampa Utes. One of many federal Indian agencies established in Colorado during the 1860s, the Middle Park Agency mostly operated from Denver. After the Treaty of 1868 established a reservation for the Utes west of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, the agency was moved to a location on the White River in 1869 and became known as the White River Agency.

Background

Prior to the establishment of the agency, beginning sometime in early 1861, Special Indian agent Henry M. Vaile was assigned to the Utes in northern Colorado and to the Arapaho. He established a headquarters at Breckenridge, but most of his time seems to have been spent in Denver. Knowledge about the Utes under his jurisdiction was extremely limited, so he was attached to the survey party of the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company that worked to find a wagon route from Denver to Salt Lake City in 1861. The route passed over Berthoud Pass, through Hot Sulphur Springs, over Gore Pass, and down the White River into Utah. Vaile made little contact with Utes during this journey but conferred with authorities in Salt Lake City prior to his return to Denver. An unratified agreement was made with the Utes to allow the wagon road to be built through Middle Park. He hired Uriah M. Curtis as his interpreter in late 1861 and planned to spend the winter at Breckenridge, where he expected the Utes to arrive.

Attempts to Establish an Agency

But Vaile was soon removed from his post—perhaps because of Confederate sympathies—and Simeon Whiteley was appointed as the first agent of what was then called the Middle Park Agency on December 23, 1862. Whiteley was appointed because of his political support of Abraham Lincoln and his association with Secretary of War Simon Cameron. Whiteley was a newspaperman from Racine, Wisconsin, and he purchased the Denver newspaper Commonwealth. No actual agency facilities existed within the jurisdiction of the Middle Park Agency, and Whiteley only ventured into Ute territory during the summer months.

During the summer of 1863, Whiteley rather unsuccessfully attempted to make contact with the Grand River and Uintah bands in North Park, Middle Park, Hot Sulphur Springs, and along the Grand (Colorado) River to have them attend treaty negotiations at the Conejos Indian Agency later that year. He rehired Curtis as his interpreter and sent him farther west to the Green River in Utah and as far as the Spanish Fork Agency in the Wasatch Valley on the same mission. The 1863 treaty negotiations were poorly attended, and the resulting agreement was not ratified. This was largely because the Utes were not fully represented and those present were unwilling to settle on a small reservation in the San Juan River valley of New Mexico. Whiteley attempted to establish an agency compound along the Colorado River at Hot Sulphur Springs in Middle Park in the summer of 1863. However, the need for military protection and the agency’s remote location caused him to withdraw with no improvements made.

Daniel C. Oakes replaced Whiteley as agent on May 11, 1865. Oakes had arrived in Colorado in late 1858 and brought the first sawmill to the state. He was chosen because of his firsthand knowledge of the Utes. The agency was headquartered in Denver, but Oakes distributed annuity goods—items promised to Native Americans in treaties—in Empire in 1865. He had hopes of establishing an agency away from Denver once the wagon road between Denver and Salt Lake City was completed, which was expected to be in 1866. The Utes were not happy about the road, which passed through Middle Park, but were assured that no settlement would be allowed along its route. Despite the road being built, the agency headquarters remained in Denver. Treaty negotiations took place with the Grand River and Yampa Utes in Middle Park. Congress did not ratify the treaty, but the Utes still expected that whites would not settle on their land.

Dissolution

In 1868 Oakes helped negotiate the Treaty of 1868, which set the eastern boundary of the Ute Reservation west of Middle Park, at 107 degrees latitude and stipulated that two agencies would be constructed on the reservation. Oakes was sent out to find a suitable location for an agency for the Uintah, Grand River, and Yampa Utes who were formerly attached to the Middle Park Agency. In early September 1869, he and the Utes agreed that the new agency would be situated on the White River in northwest Colorado. He began laying out the agency buildings and brought supplies south from the railroad at Rawlins, Wyoming. This was his last formal duty as agent for the Utes attached to the Middle Park Agency. A military officer replaced him. The Middle Park Agency ended with the establishment of the White River Agency.