Hubbell Trading Post NHS
— — the oldest counter still open on the reservation.
Not only on a wall.
“A low stone building on the Pueblo Colorado Wash, with cottonwoods out front and a hogan behind. John Lorenzo Hubbell bought the post in 1878 and his family ran it for nearly a century. Today the rug room still smells like wool and lanolin, and weavers from Ganado and Wide Ruins still bring work in. The National Park Service keeps the doors open and the prices fair. A working place, not a museum that pretends. — from the studio
Hubbell Trading Post NHS, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Hubbell Trading Post sits in Ganado, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation in Apache County, about 55 miles northwest of Gallup, New Mexico. John Lorenzo Hubbell purchased the post in 1878 and operated it as a hub for trade in Navajo rugs, silver, and groceries. Congress established the National Historic Site in 1965, and the National Park Service has run it as a working trading post ever since, in partnership with the Western National Parks Association. The 160-acre site preserves the original sandstone post, the Hubbell family home, a barn, and several outbuildings on the banks of Pueblo Colorado Wash.
The post is built of locally quarried sandstone, with adobe-mortared walls more than two feet thick at the base. The roof timbers are ponderosa pine hauled by wagon from the Defiance Plateau. Inside, the bullpen — the central trading room — has a stamped-tin ceiling and worn plank floors that mark the path between the wool table and the dry-goods counter. The Hubbell family added the rug room in the 1890s as the Ganado-style weaving trade grew. The buildings have changed remarkably little since J. L. Hubbell's son Roman ran the post into the 1950s.
The site is open year-round except major holidays, with grounds typically open from 8 a.m. and the trading post itself active through the afternoon; check the park calendar before driving. Admission to the grounds is free, and the trading post still sells groceries, rugs, jewelry, and basketry on consignment from Navajo artists. Ranger-led tours of the Hubbell family home run on a posted schedule. The site lies on Navajo Nation land, which observes Mountain Daylight Time in summer while the surrounding state of Arizona does not — a one-hour shift that catches visitors out.