Gov. Katie Hobbs announced on Friday that a longstanding tribal land dispute, nearly three decades in the making, is finally getting settled. It’ll transfer thousands of acres of state land into trust for the Hopi Tribe.
The Arizona State Land Department, which manages more than 9 million acres of state trust lands, will get paid nearly $4 million by the tribe to take almost 21,000 acres from Coconino County — south of I-40 near Winslow — into trust.
That’s roughly $185 per acre.
In all, the Hopi Tribe will eventually spend more than $20 million to consolidate about 110,000 acres worth of checkerboarded properties in Coconino and Navajo counties that border tribal lands.
By taking those lands into trust, the Hopi Tribe, which is surrounded by the sprawling 17-million-acre Navajo Nation, shall expand its 1.5-million-acre-reservation in northeastern Arizona. This agreement follows the Navajo-Hopi Land Dispute Settlement Act that ended hostilities between the two tribes in 1996.
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