Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site

Located in Ganado, Arizona, Hubbell Trading Post is the oldest continuously operated trading post on the Navajo Nation. Hubbell’s (as it is affectionately known) is more than a special place. Hubbell’s is about the culture, tradition and artistry of a place that is steeped in the history of the West while continuing today as a living, thriving, active trading post. We look forward to sharing Hubbell’s with you and hope you will in turn share the passion of Hubbell’s with others.

Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site is a historic site on Highway 191, north of Chambers, with an exhibit center in Ganado, Arizona. It is considered a meeting ground of two cultures between the Navajo and the settlers who came to the area to trade.

In 1878, John Lorenzo Hubbell purchased this trading post, ten years after Navajos were allowed to return to the Ganado region from their U.S.-imposed exile in Bosque Redondo, Fort Sumner, New Mexico. This ended what is known in Navajo history as the "Long Walk of the Navajo."

It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

Construction of the trading post barn began in 1897. The builders, local people, made the walls of local sandstone and the roofs fashioned in the ancient Anasazi-style dwellings. Ponderosa pine beams, aspen poles, juniper bark, cornstalks, and dirt make up layers, each at right angles to the one below it. Mules and pulleys lifted the beams into place. The timbers came from about twelve miles (19 km) east of Ganado Village where it is high enough for Ponderosa to grow. The aspen poles came from farther away in the Chuska Mountains that straddle the Arizona/New Mexico state line one hundred miles north to the intersection with Colorado and Utah. The barn was completed in 1900.