FORT DUCHESNE, Uintah County — The Ute Indian Tribe nearly went broke four years ago. The summer of that year, it had only enough money to run the tribal government and its many social programs for one month.

Today, the tribe is prospering.

At its annual Northern Ute Powwow on July 4, the tribe handed out checks totaling $6.3 million to its members, three times as much as was distributed the previous year.

There are several other noteworthy benchmarks of success since 2002.

• Since then, tribal coffers have swelled enough to double the number of members employed by the tribe. About 600 now have jobs.

• The tribe now has a flourishing retirement fund for its elders.

• Its worth has swelled tenfold to more than $100 million, not including several hundred million in water settlement rights.

• The tribe has increased the amount directed to college scholarships and vocational training from $200,000 to $300,000 since 2002.

• The tribe started its own oil company, Ute Energy. It has 60 producing wells and plans to drill 128 more, making it the fourth-largest producer in the Uintah Basin.

• The tribe will invest $80 million in exploration in 2007.

• The tribe's $24 million annual budget rivals the combined budgets of Duchesne and Uintah counties combined. "I don't think people realize the economic impact the tribe has on the state," says Cameron Cuch, a Ute Energy analyst. "We drive the economy off the Wasatch Front."

"There has been a tremendous change," says Ute chairwoman Maxine Natchees. "Without doing something, we would have had to close down the government."

Success story

The past four years have amounted to a Cinderella story for the Utes. Before that, years of inattention and bad deals nearly led to disaster for the 3,100-member tribe.

"They were just not on top of their expenses and revenues," says Forrest Cuch, a Ute who heads the Utah Office of Indian Affairs. "They just had no idea what their obligations were, and it caught up with them."

Enter John Jurrius, a polished Texan whom the tribe hired away from the Southern Utes in Colorado after he made them one of richest Indian nations in the country.

"He stretched some of his own finances to pull them out of that," Forrest Cuch said. "He's a true American. I really mean that."

Jurrius doesn't consider himself a savior. He says he's just an investment banker preaching simple math.

Traditionally, tribal services like health care are provided through the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs — each tribe gets a chunk of money from the government. But in the Utes' case, that amount did not cover costs.