Dallas Honors Native American History with New Lake Names

Three quiet pools of water tucked between highways and neighborhoods along the Trinity River will now honor Dallas’ Native American history. In a landmark act of cultural restoration, the Dallas City Council unanimously agreed last month to name these lakes with Native terms proposed by a grassroots intertribal committee.

The three lakes will be referred to as the Three Sisters Lakes. Each one is also named individually: Comanche NʉmʉNahmi (Nuh-muh-nah-me) Lake, Lipan Apache Mbáti (M-bAH-tee) Lake and Wichita ita:iʔh (Ee-dotzh-ee) Lake. Each of the names in each tribal language means “sister” in some form.

The committee, composed of local Native leaders and representatives from several tribal nations, worked to ensure the names reflect the region’s deep Native history and spiritual connection to water. “This was never just about naming lakes,” said Jodi Voice Yellowfish, founder and chair of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Texas Rematriate. “It’s about making visible what has long been ignored. It’s about the people who were here before Dallas was Dallas — and who are still here.”

Voice Yellowfish is Muscogee Creek, Oglala Lakota and Cherokee. The lakes are located in West Dallas, a neighborhood with a layered history of Native American relocation. In the mid-20th century, federal policies moved Native families from reservations to urban centers in a push toward assimilation. Dallas was one such destination.

“My family came here on relocation,” said Antonio Pahcheka Valdez, a Comanche Nation member and co-founder of the Intertribal Community Council of Texas. “It was meant to remove us from our culture. But it didn’t work. We found each other. We built community.” That community shared more than geography. For many, West Dallas became a second homeland. It is fitting that the lakes — formed by flood control and development efforts — sit in this very landscape.

“It’s fate, in a way,” Pahcheka Valdez said. “That we, and future generations, get to have a say in something that honors our ancestors on the very land where they were pushed to start over.”

The Power of Water

The names draw from a concept known among Native American cultures as the “Three Sisters” — corn, beans and squash — plants that grow best when cultivated together. The metaphor resonated with the committee, especially given the lakes’ perceived feminine energy and the cultural reverence many tribes hold for water.

“There’s a sacredness to water and a connection to women,” said Robin Williams, tribal historic preservation officer of the Wichita Affiliated Tribes. “We carry life in water for nine months. Water is everywhere. It is life.” Like the community itself, committee members noted that water is not bound by tribal lines. The naming process became an act of unity across Comanche, Lipan Apache, Wichita, Caddo and other nations, some of which have overlapping ancestral or relocated ties to North Texas.

“The Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas has a deep-rooted presence in the state and the region,” said Rachel Salinas, a council member of the tribe. ”Our ancestors hunted, traded and traveled throughout what is now Dallas long before the city was established. The Trinity River and surrounding areas were part of our seasonal movements and trade routes.”

While the lakes’ names are new, the recognition is long overdue, according to tribal members. “I grew up without my culture, not knowing I was walking on my own ancestral lands,” said Diana Parton, a citizen of the Caddo Nation and board member of Friends of Caddo Mounds. “Had I known, even just that, it would’ve filled in something hollow in me.”

Parton said the personal and generational impact of reclaiming land in name and memory is powerful. “I don’t want any Comanche, Lipan or Wichita child to grow up feeling the way I did,“ Parton said. ”Even if they don’t know anything else about their nation, knowing they’re standing on their people’s land will strengthen them.”

The city’s transportation and water departments are working on the new signs. During the City Council vote, council members said plaques or visual markers explaining the origins and meaning behind each name should be added. Marco Sa