LINDA WERTHEIMER, host:
As Indian reservations were established in the Southwest in the mid-19th century, trading posts became a fixture in the landscape. The stores were owned by Anglos. Native Americans came in and exchanged their crafts for food and other things they needed in their daily lives. The posts also served as banks and social hubs.
Only a handful still function as traditional trading posts. The longest continuously operating one is in northeast Arizona. It's a national historic site. Rose Houk of member station KNAU paid a visit.
ROSE HOUK: Native Americans have brought their finely woven rugs, jewelry and pinon nuts to the Hubbell Trading Post for more than a century. National Park Service Ranger Ailema Benally is Navajo and grew up nearby. She remembers her family trading small rugs and goatskins when she was a child back in the 1960s.
Ranger AILEMA BENALLY (National Park Service): My first time here was with my parents. They invited me to come in with them, and I hesitated. When I did they disappeared around the back side, and by the time I entered the trading post I was surrounded by counter and I thought, where did they go. But I remember being small enough I couldn't see over the counter.
HOUK: And traders conduct business behind that same counter today.
Ranger BENALLY: We still have satin, velvet, enamel wear, cast iron, so that we people need these things they're here for the ceremonies for what they need here at home.
Unidentified Man #1: Thank you.
Unidentified Man #2: Enjoy your trip. It sounds like�
HOUK: Edison Eskeets is assistant trader at Hubbell. He's Navajo, which is unusual for a trader. Some of his customers still barter for goods instead of using cash, and he speaks to them in their own language.
Mr. EDISON ESKEETS (Assistant trader, Hubbell Trading Post): I have always said you've got to at least know (foreign language spoken), which is hello, and the other is what are you here for, (foreign language spoken). The person's reply might be, (foreign language spoken), which is a rug. That's the old word, too. They can also say (foreign language spoken), which is today's term.
HOUK: In 1883, John Lorenzo Hubbell built this trading post, a low stone building beneath sprawling cottonwoods. His descendants ran it until the 1960s, when they sold it to the National Park Service with a catch - it would remain a working trading post. Ed Chamberlain is the park's curator.
Mr. ED CHAMBERLAIN (Curator, National Park Service): The furniture is all the original furniture. And it's still being used. It's been used for 100 years. The drawers are filled with papers. The roll top desk is stuffed every little corner with some note remembering someone's name or who knows. We have everything from the rusted metal nail and old drive shaft from an abandoned automobile, all the way up to a wonderful Germantown blanket.
HOUK: Chamberlain says the staff at Hubbell is constantly debating the role of a trading post in the modern world.
Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: For example, is doing pawn a requirement for being a trading post? I'm not sure. Is selling groceries a requirement? I think it is. Is selling Native American art a requirement? I think it is. Maybe it's not what's inside. Maybe it's how it approaches its role in the community.
HOUK: And for Hubbell Trading Post, that role is to be the place where native people can still trade their baskets and rugs and get the best price for Blue Bird Flour for frybread.
For NPR News, I'm Rose Houk.
Copyright © 2009 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.