Many years ago enormous towers with which to carry electricity from the Columbia River hydro facilities through Central Oregon to the South, were in the siting process. The towers were to be installed through the Warm Springs Indian Reservation and private ranch lands along the way. The condemnation process was in the care of a fine lawyer in the office of the United States Attorney for Oregon. He telephoned me one day to suggest that we agree upon an award to my client, one of the private landowners upon whose land some of the towers were to be installed. I suggested the same price per tower that he had agreed was appropriate for the Reservation, but he responded that I was not that “red.” A bench trial was inevitable and we discussed the trial site.
At that time the Reservation had established a beautiful resort called Ka Neeta and we recommended that site to the federal Judge, an old friend to both of us, who strongly questioned our competency in recommending a site upon which he had questionable jurisdiction. But making an informal agreement as to appeal rights that was probably unenforceable, we went to the manager of Ka Neeta who was flattered at the prospect, and we began trial within the beautiful Tribal Council Room overlooking the resort and the Central Oregon vista. The federal court entourage and the staff and witnesses of the parties spent a few days in a trial setting that probably improved upon any other in the history of Oregon and I am confident in suggesting it was the only time that federal court sat in a civil trial upon an Indian Reservation.
There had been recently published a book, entitled Power Over People, the subject of which was much in controversy among the trial witnesses. Ultimately, the condemnation award was given to the non-Indian, less than what had been settled upon the Warm Springs Indian Tribe, but found by my client to be adequate, perhaps generous.
