Winans (1905): Yakama Treaty Rights vs. Fish Wheels

A wheel meets a treaty

At the turn of the twentieth century, a new machine joined the Columbia River’s ancient salmon runs. Private fish wheels—large, water‑powered baskets—hauled salmon by the ton for canneries. At the same time, Yakama Nation families continued to fish at their usual and accustomed places reserved in the 1855 Stevens Treaties, using platforms and dip nets along the river’s rocks and falls. That coexistence did not hold once a wheel blocked access to a prime site.

Treaty negotiators in 1855 acknowledged that Indigenous nations would retain critical lifeways even as the United States claimed vast lands. The conference that produced the Yakama Treaty made explicit that fishing at long‑used locations would continue on and off reservation. For background on those negotiations, see the National Park Service overview of the Walla Walla Council of 1855.

The Winans case, 1905

Two brothers, operating under a Washington state license, placed a fish wheel on the Columbia and acquired adjacent lands. They then excluded Yakama fishers from reaching their scaffolds and camps. The United States sued on the Nation’s behalf, and in 1905 the Supreme Court decided United States v. Winans.

The Court held that the treaty was not a grant of rights to the Yakama Nation but a reservation of rights they already possessed. Those reserved rights created an easement across private lands to reach the river, and the state could not authorize a device that gave exclusive possession of treaty fishing places. Readers can examine the primary decision here: the Supreme Court’s opinion in United States v. Winans (1905).

Platforms, wheels, and the current

Yakama, Warm Springs, Umatilla, and Nez Perce communities had long gathered where the river thundered over Celilo Falls, drying, trading, and feasting on salmon. In the late nineteenth century, industrial gear expanded rapidly as canneries multiplied; by 1899, dozens of wheels worked the river. States later outlawed the wheels—Oregon in 1927 and Washington in 1935—after intense debates about conservation and equity.

The loss of Celilo’s roar in 1957, when The Dalles Dam inundated the falls, transformed the fishery and the river corridor. Yet families maintained ceremonial and commercial fishing at treaty sites, and Yakama Nation leaders adapted strategy to protect habitat, regulate harvests, and assert sovereignty in modern forums.

Why it still matters

• Access: Winans confirmed a right‑of‑way to reach usual and accustomed places, even across private land.
• Limits on exclusivity: The ruling rejected state‑sanctioned monopolies that would shut out treaty fishers.
• Legal framing: The decision emphasized that treaties reserve, rather than grant, Indigenous rights.
• Policy ripple effects: Later bans on fish wheels and river management plans unfolded in a landscape shaped by the case.
• Living nation: Yakama Nation Fisheries today co‑manages runs, invests in habitat, and defends treaty rights in regional planning.

Related on our site

For another story of industry meeting homeland—and how a Native nation navigated it—see our feature on the Timbisha Shoshone at Death Valley’s borax era.

Sources

1. United States v. Winans (1905), U.S. Reports 198:371.
2. Walla Walla Council (1855), National Park Service.
3. Pacific Northwest History & Cultures: The Impact of Dams, NMAI NK360.
4. History of Columbia River commercial gear (incl. fish wheels), WDFW.
5. Protecting the Resource, Yakama Nation Fisheries.

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed through source-based research.