Schurz: Named for a Cabinet Secretary, Governed by the Paiute

The Walker River Paiute have lived in this valley for thousands of years. They call themselves the Agai Dicutta, the Trout Eaters, for the cutthroat trout they harvested from Walker Lake and the Walker River. The Walker River Reservation was established by executive order in eighteen fifty-nine and confirmed by President Grant in eighteen seventy-four.

The town of Schurz grew up along the Carson and Colorado Railroad line across the reservation and was named for Carl Schurz, who had served as Secretary of the Interior. It became a shipping point for regional mines and briefly boomed.

Today Schurz is the largest community on the Walker River Paiute Indian Reservation and remains under tribal governance. The tribe's constitution was ratified in nineteen thirty-seven. The town is a reminder that a place can carry the name of a government official while belonging, in every meaningful sense, to the people who were there first.