Fort Sill Apache gets grant to build fuel station

LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) — The Fort Sill Apache Tribe has been awarded $800,000 from the federal government to help build a fuel station on its property in southern New Mexico. Tribal Chairman Jeff Haozous tells the Las Cruces Sun-News (http://bit.ly/2nktMQw) that details still need to be worked out for the project at Akela Flats, but he believes it will be larger than a similar project the tribe recently started in Oklahoma. That $2.5 million project includes construction of a 4,000-square-foot convenience store and a gas station. Work on the New Mexico project is expected to begin next year. The Fort Sill Apache Tribe is based in Oklahoma. But the federal government in 2011 designed a 30-acre parcel between Las Cruces and Deming as the tribe's reservation. The tribe first acquired the land in 1998.