The reservation was established on June 18, 1917, and comprises two parcels of land, 20 acres (0.081 km2) enclosed within the urban area of the City of Winnemucca centered on Cinnabar Street, and 320 acres (1.3 km2) of rural land on the southern edge of the city west of Water Canyon Road.

[3] In 2007, the Winnemucca Indian Colony joined non-Natives from Utah in suing the United States to prevent the detonation of 700 tons of explosives at the Nevada Test Site, which is on ancestral Western Shoshone lands.

The tribe considers the removal and subsequent nuclear weapons testing on their lands as a violation of the 1863 Western Shoshone Treaty of Ruby Valley.

[5] The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights ruled on March 10, 2006 that the lands belonged to the Winnemucca Indian Colony and other Western Shoshone tribes.

[6] The U.S. does not recognise the competence of the Committee to hear complaints from individuals about violations of the rights protected by the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.