We welcome you to the communities and places of South Wasco. We acknowledge and honor that this region is the ancestral territory of the Taix’ Band. The Taix’ Band is one of the Warm Springs Tribe’s four bands. Tygh Valley is named after the Taix’ people that lived in the area before being moved to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in 1855.

In 1855, Joel Palmer; the Bureau of Indian Affairs Superintendent for the Oregon Territory, negotiated the 1855 Middle Oregon Tribes Treaty with the Warm Springs and Wasco Tribes. These two tribes ceded 10 million acres to the United States Government, in return for just over a half million acres of their territory reserved in what is now known as the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation. Most of this Reservation lies within South Wasco County. The reserved Treaty Rights of the Tribes to harvest fish, game and other foods in their usual and accustomed places off reservation lands in common with the U.S. citizens is protected in the treaty.

We acknowledge in gratitude to this area and honor the lives, legacies and descendants of the ancestral people. We know the history of colonialism that exists here and as a first step for raising awareness to the local tribe’s culture and the continued disenfranchisement of the tribe’s populations today. The Taix’ Band and other American Indians are living with a past, present and future. Today the Warm Springs Indian Reservation is home for 3,300 tribal members of the Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute Tribes and a total tribal enrollment exceeding 5,000.

We encourage you to visit and support tribal member owned businesses and tribal institutions as you explore this ceded land area.