The Fort Sill Apache Tribe has regained a physical presence in its ancestral lands in southeastern Arizona, lands lost in 1886 when the tribe was forcibly exiled from the state.
The Trust for Public Land on Sept. 23 said it would convey a 55-acre parcel of private land in the historic Cochise Stronghold region of the Dragoon Mountains, about 50 miles southwest of Tucson, to Fort Sill. The parcel, which lies within Coronado National Forest, was formally signed over to the tribe Sept. 10.
This is the newest project of the trust’s Tribal and Indigenous Lands Program, which has transferred more than 200,000 acres back into tribal ownership. It’s the first project of its type in Arizona…