On the sparsely settled Arizona reservation lands, trading posts were important centers for commerce as well as social gathering destinations. With a subsistence economy, the posts offered opportunities to trade sheep, wool, and crafts for necessities such as flour, coffee, sugar (known as "sweet-salt"), and tools. Most often, traders were Anglos, living as partners among their Indian neighbors. They often were the only contact with the outside culture, and their stores provided an outlet for local arts such as rugs, pottery, baskets, and jewelry. Traders helped with correspondence, transportation, and sickness, and they even buried the dead. Trading posts were the sites of marriages and murders; they were destinations for artists, scientists, and adventurous tourists. With the coming of roads and automobiles, trading posts have all but disappeared, but the stories and photographs shared in this volume offer a glimpse into a vanishing time in the Southwest.

On the sparsely settled Arizona reservation lands, trading posts were important centers for commerce as well as social gathering destinations. With a subsistence economy, the posts offered opportunities to trade sheep, wool, and crafts for necessities such as flour, coffee, sugar (known as "sweet-salt"), and tools. Most often, traders were Anglos, living as partners among their Indian neighbors. They often were the only contact with the outside culture, and their stores provided an outlet for local arts such as rugs, pottery, baskets, and jewelry. Traders helped with correspondence, transportation, and sickness, and they even buried the dead. Trading posts were the sites of marriages and murders; they were destinations for artists, scientists, and adventurous tourists. With the coming of roads and automobiles, trading posts have all but disappeared, but the stories and photographs shared in this volume offer a glimpse into a vanishing time in the Southwest.

Gladwell "Toney" Richardson came from a long line of Indian traders and published nearly three hundred western novels under pseudonyms like "Maurice Kildare." His forty years of managing trading posts on the Navajo Reservation are now recalled in this colorful memoir.

History extols the bravery and enterprise of the pioneers, trapers, railroaders, miners and cowboys, but little has been written about the romance and legends of the Indian traders of the Southwest. Just when the first Indian trader began dealing with the Southwest Indians is uncertain. This is a book about trading posts. Old trading posts. Trading posts that are still operating and ones that are long gone without a trace, except perhaps a crumbling wall or foundation. The book describes the present condition of each post, examines its history, and provides directions to even the hard-to-find posts. Indian trading posts are rapidly becoming a thing of the past or, as some would say, have become a thing of the past. Although many still occupy the original buildings and some owners resist the complete modernization of their stores, few of today's so-called 'trading posts' bear any similarity to what a real working trading post was like -- Back cover.

In 1911, a one-track suspension bridge was constructed over the gorge of the Little Colorado River, bypassing a treacherous river crossing and opening travel to northern Arizona. Five years later, Hubert Richardson built a tin-roofed shack on the river's rim and opened his trading post for business. In the first years, almost all of his customers were Navajo, but with the new bridge travelers soon found the area, and it became the access point for the Grand Canyon, Glen Canyon, and the Four Corners area. A century later, Cameron Trading Post is a thriving epicenter still serving Navajo people, tourists, and an impressive list of the famous and fascinating, including authors, scientists, and movie stars. Boasting a curio store, gas station, motel, RV park, grocery store, and art gallery, Cameron is visited by guests from all over the world. It is a crossroads and a destination for visitors to this historic trading post.

This is the story of Billy Gene Malone and the end of an era. Malone lived almost his entire life on the Navajo Reservation working as an Indian trader; the last real indian trader to operate historis Hubbell Trading Post. In 2004 the National Park Service (NPS) launched an investigation targeting Malone, alleging a long list of crimes that literally equated him with the likes of Al Capone. A thought-provoking story of the dark side of a respected branch of the American government, The Case of the Indian Trader will open the eyes of a wide audience.

This overview is the first to examine trading in the last quarter of the twentieth century, when changes in both Navajo and white cultures led to the investigation of trading practices by the Federal Trade Commission, resulting in the demise of most traditional trading posts.