Under authority of the act of Congress of June 4, 1897 (30 Stat., 11 at 34 and 36), and upon recommendation of the Secretary of Agriculture, it is hereby ordered that on and after March 1, 1912, the boundaries of the Sitgreaves National Forest, Ariz., proclaimed March 2, 1909, and modified by subsequent proclamation of August 24, 1910, be further modified by excluding therefrom all that part of the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation included in the said Sitgreaves National Forest by the said proclamation of March 2, 1909.
The purpose of this exclusion is to restore the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation in all respects to the status existing prior to the said proclamation of March 2, 1909, as though the inclusion of the lands within the Sitgreaves National Forest had not been ordered, and said Indian reservation is hereby fully recreated and restored to that status.
WM. H. TAFT
William Howard Taft, Executive Order 1479—Restoring Lands to White Mountain Indian Reservation Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/277176