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Zeutschel OS7000, 400 dpi, 8 bit, 9,080,860 bytes60th Congress, 2d Session, Senate, Report No. 778-BRIDGE ACROSS LITTLE COLORADO RIVER, ARIZONA.-January 18, 1909.--Ordered to be printed.---Mr. Taylor, from the Committee on Indian Affairs, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany S. 7883.] The Committee on Indian Affairs, to whom the above bill was referred, having examined the same, make favorable report thereon and incorporate in their report letter of the Secretary of the Interior of December 14, 1908, recommending the same.---Department of the Interior,Washington, December 14, 1908.Sir: There is inclosed a draft of a bill authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to construct a bridge across the Little Colorado River, abutting on the Navajo Indian Reservation, in the Territory of Arizona, and for other purposes. The bill appropriates $15,000 for the construction of the bridge and its approaches, and provides that this sum shall be reimbursed to the United States by collecting tolls for its use.The Indians are to have free use of the bridge, and the county officials of the county in which it is to be located are to collect the tolls and make proper accounting to the Secretary of the Interior. The Secretary is required to deposit the sum so collected in the Treasury, and, when the amount collected shall equal the cost of construction, and the United States shall have been reimbursed, the bridge is to become the property of the county in which it is located. The Secretary is authorized to make all necessary regulations for carrying the provisions of the bill into effect.The superintendent of the Western Navajo Indian school at Tuba, Ariz., says in a letter to the Indian Office, dated November 13, 1908, that the bridge, if constructed, will be on the main highway from Utah and Nevada through the western part of the Navajo Indian Reservation and to the south; that horses, wagons, and freight of all kinds to the amount of thousands of dollars have been lost at Tanner's Crossing; that people go hundreds of miles out of their way to avoid it if possible; that it is often impossible to cross the stream; that Indian freighters are compelled to stay for days on its barren banks with their starving teams; that, when forced to attempt a crossing, they brave its treacherous quicksands and raging floods often to see their horses drowned, their wagons and loads lost, and to find themselves naked on its banks, stripped of every earthly possession, and beggared; that the whole country there fears Tanner's Crossing, and it is used only from necessity, and that the development and civilization of the Indians of the Western Navajo Reservation are seriously retarded by this isolating barrier