Rivers was crusader for minorities

Tuesday, Sept. 9, 1997 | 9:27 a.m.

Bart Rivers moved West on two occasions with friends who would become accomplished actors.

Although he too had aspirations of making it big in the movies, Rivers, an American Indian, instead wound up in Las Vegas, where he answered a more nobler call and made a difference in the lives of his people and others.

Bartolo Bartholomew Rivers, the first director of the Nevada Indian Commission and a crusader for better employment opportunities for all minorities, died Monday of heart failure at his Las Vegas home. He was 81.

Services are pending and are being handled by Palm Mortuary.

"My father was more urban in his beliefs -- he took an interest in pow-wows, but wasn't interested in living on the reservation or following the old ways," said David Joseph Rivers II, a Las Vegas attorney and the judge for the Las Vegas Paiute commercial court, which handles banking cases.

"For Indians leaving the reservation, he felt it was important that they learn the new ways."

But, on his deathbed Sunday, Rivers told his son to never forget his roots.

"He said he didn't understand the old ways but he wanted his sons to keep in contact with our people and not to lose touch," David said. "He felt you could assimilate too far."

Born Nov. 17, 1915, in Wichita, Kan., Rivers, who was part Apache and part Comanche, was one of 19 children of Adella Tayez and Joseph Rivers.

As a child, he survived rheumatic fever and polio -- the latter left him with a distinguished limp.

On his first trip West, Rivers was accompanied by Ben Johnson, who would go on to become a major cowboy film star and win an Academy Award for his role as the pool hall owner in "The Last Picture Show," a 1971 Peter Bogdanovich classic.

Rivers, on the other hand, appeared in a number of western flicks -- always as an Indian being shot off a horse. That is, when he could get acting work. He mostly worked in scenery construction.

"My father was painting the sets one day with Ben and said there was no future in that for him," David said. "He did not know Ben had made it in Hollywood until he watched a 1967 TV show in which Ben had a role" on the ABC western "The Monroes."

Rivers moved to St. Louis and then to the Pacific Northwest, where he became friends with fellow Indian Will Sampson, who accompanied him back to Hollywood.

Rivers often told a story about how he and Sampson were arrested for climbing trees and eating apples on the grounds of the Capitol in Olympia, Wash.

Sampson went on to win acclaim as the hulking Indian mental patient in the 1975 Milos Forman masterpiece "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which won Jack Nicholson an Oscar.

Fed up with his lack of success in Hollywood, Rivers left forever. He moved back to the Pacific Northwest, where he fought fires and was a forest ranger for awhile.

During World War II, Rivers served in North Africa under Gen. George Patton. He earned a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts.

Rivers then was assigned to work on the Manhattan Project -- the atom bomb -- in Hanford, Wash. Rivers was the sole survivor of a radiation accident, which left severe burns on both of his legs.

A member of the Air Force Reserve, Rivers long kept the secret of the accident and never took action against the federal government for the incident. His son said: "He took the oath that he had made to work on the Manhattan Project very seriously."

Rivers remained in Washington after the war, marrying Wilma West. The family moved to Las Vegas in 1964, where he worked first for the Nevada Test Site and then as an inspector for the Nevada Department of Weights and Measures.

Rivers later was the building and grounds supervisor at the Jean Hanna Clark Rehabilitation Center.

Gov. Mike O'Callaghan appointed Rivers as the first director of the Nevada Indian Commission after Rivers had served a stint on the Intertribal Council.

"Bart was a strong man who weathered the tough life experienced by Americans of his generation," said O'Callaghan, now executive editor of the SUN. "He was justly proud of his Indian heritage, and his word was his bond.

"He faced every challenge with the confidence that was such a part of his personality."

As a member of the commission, Rivers became one of the architects of the Las Vegas Plan, a project to help get more jobs to Indians, blacks and Hispanics.

A man of few words, Rivers did not talk much about his accomplishments. He told friends his finest accomplishment was his sons.

He also was active in the Reformation Lutheran Church, among other community activities.

Rivers, who had a pacemaker installed to improve his heart condition, was hospitalized on Mother's Day and came home Sunday.

In addition to his wife and son, both of Las Vegas, Rivers is survived by two other sons, Michael West Rivers of Las Vegas and Bartolo Bartholomew Rivers Jr. (now known as Jorge Garcia) of Wichita.