Paiute Winnemucca will have her own special day in Nevada

By Sandra Chereb Review-Journal Capital Bureau

8 years ago

A statue of Sarah Winnemucca as seen Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013 inside Nevada State Capitol Building in Carson City, Nev. (Jeff Scheid/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

A statue of Sarah Winnemucca as seen Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013 inside Nevada State Capitol Building in Carson City, Nev. A statue of her is also in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol. She was a prominent Native American activist and writer. (Jeff Scheid/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

A statue of Sarah Winnemucca during the unveiling ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, Wednesday, March 9, 2005. (Susan Walsh/AP)

A bronze statute of Paiute princess Sarah Winnemucca in the lobby of the Nevada Capitol in Carson City on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. Sandra Chereb Las Vegas Review-Journal

A statue of Sarah Winnemucca as seen Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2013 inside Nevada State Capitol Building in Carson City, Nev. (Jeff Scheid/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

CARSON CITY — Sarah Winnemucca, a Paiute princess who served as a translator for the U.S. military in the 1800s and spent much of her life negotiating between different cultures, will have her own special day in Nevada.

The Senate on Wednesday unanimously approved Assembly Bill 435, which designates Oct. 16 as Sarah Winnemucca Day. It previously passed the Assembly on a unanimous vote and now goes to Gov. Brian Sandoval.

The granddaughter of a Paiute tribal chief, Winnemucca was born in 1844 in western Nevada. She spoke five languages, addressed President Rutherford Hayes and Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz about the plight of the Paiute Tribe. She also gave hundreds of lectures, founded a school and published a memoir.

Winnemucca died Oct. 16, 1891.

A statue of Winnemucca stands in the lobby of the Nevada Capitol and in the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol.

Contact Sandra Chereb at schereb@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-3821. Follow @SandraChereb on Twitter.