TUBA CITY

The Mormons named it Tuba City for the Hopi headman who befriended them in 1875. The Navajos call it To Nanesdizi, Tangled Waters, because of the many springs which underlie it. The Government people who live there just say Tuba. It is the biggest community from Flagstaff, Arizona, to Bluff, Utah; there is no other place so large on the entire western third of the Navajo reservation. Its altitude is about 5000, its population about 200. Not unlike some of the great cities which claim all the surrounding towns in their metropolitan areas, Tuba could claim that it embraces the whole western reservation. Certainly it draws from every part of the 5,300,000 acres west of Black Mountain for school pupils and hospital patients.

From Tuba can be seen two of the corners of the modern Navajo world: the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona, and Navajo Mountain, over the line in Utah. (The two others are Sleeping Ute Mountain in Colorado and Mount Taylor in New Mexico.) Near the San Francisco Peaks, to the west, is a hill to which the Navajo traveling south directs his gaze. This hill is shaped something like a hogan, and in its interior live the Navajo yeis, who emerge at times to participate in the great nine-day ceremonies known as Yeibichais.

The Hopi who looks southward to the same peaks sees there the home of his Kachinas, who dwell during part of the year on the top of Mt. Humphrey, highest spot in Arizona. These peaks are snow-covered during more than half of the year. They are a source of water-bearing clouds and as such are revered by the Hopis, whose entire lives are influenced by the constant need of moisture. Their Kachina gods travel to the Hopi country over the rainbows, bringing with them the benefits of good crops and plenty in every way.

Since these suburban homes of the gods of both tribes are within commuting distance from Tuba City, it naturally follows that the peaks, too, must be within the Tuba metropolitan area. The only roads to such places as Rainbow Bridge, Navajo Mountain and other equally remote spots pass by Tuba gates. The dirt road from Mexican Hat, Utah, is the only other way to reach famous and picturesque Monument Valley. Highway 89, which cuts through the western reservation, is but thirteen miles from Tuba. A little more than halfway to Tuba City from Flagstaff, traveling on Highway 89, is Gray Mountain Trading Post. Behind it is Gray Mountain itself, a farflung mesa reaching clear around to Grand Canyon. The red stone slab marking the entrance to the Navajo reservation is placed about a mile north of the trading post. From here on to Marble Canyon, Highway 89 cuts through. Navajoland. A guidebook to the Flagstaff region mentions that there is nothing to be seen in some areas but geology. Certainly this is true of the reservation along Highway 89, for there are only four trading posts from boundary to boundary. This end of the Painted Desert, however, while not so deeply colored as that seen from Highway 66, is a neverending delight because of the unusual rock formations and the opalescent distances. And always along the horizon lies the long row of pink cliffs upon which Tuba City is located. Ten miles north of the suspension bridge across the Little Colorado river at Cameron, a flock of white signs like birds perched along the highway announce the side road which leads to "Tuba City 13, Red Lake 38, Kayenta 98, Bluff City 166," and various other interesting places. There is also an enormous sign which warns away the cautious traveler: WARNING TO PUBLIC TRAVEL BEYOND THIS POINT UNCERTAIN DUE TO BAD ROAD CONDITIONS TRAVEL AT YOUR OWN RISK Is it worth the risk? That depends on the individual. For those who care to continue on to Tuba, there are many things to see: the little petrified forest, for instance, boasting WARNING TO PUBLIC TRAVEL BEYOND THIS POINT UNCERTAIN DUE TO BAD ROAD CONDITIONS TRAVEL AT YOUR OWN RISK

The Tuba City Trading Post is one of the oldest trading posts on the Navajo reservation. It was built originally as a fort by early Mormon settlers. Its interesting Navajo customers make it a picturesque place for travelers.

Of a dozen or more trees hidden away so neatly that they cannot be located unless one knows where they are. Farther north is Pumpkin Patch Hill, whose top was once covered with what looked like petrified pumpkins. Many strange formations are still to be seen, and the view across the grotesque rock forms toward Echo Cliffs, to the northwest, is colorful and beautiful.

The road crosses Moencopi Wash and skirts the edge of the long bluff above which Tuba presides. From a distance this bluff seemed pink, but near at hand it dissolves into many colors and forms. Where the road climbs to Tuba, the view along the wash is surprisingly different from the Painted Desert. All along the watercourse are green farms and trees. Up the wash to the east is seen the lower village of Moencopi, snuggled down on a convenient bench overlooking the farming district. This area has been farmed since prehistoric times, as many evidences of settlement attest, and although the corn, squash and melons appear to be growing out of dry sand, their juiciness and flavor are without peer.

Tuba City itself stands in the midst of green trees and surrounding sand hills. The townsite was laid out in 1878 by Erastus Snow, a Mormon leader. The brown stone gates, Mormon built, stand invitingly open before a wide street arched by great cottonwoods, Mormon planted. Just outside is a gray stone trading post, established in 1879, a typical reservation store with its center stove and heavy, high counters, the shelves behind filled with everything from dress goods to lamp globes, and the inevitable case of "dead pawn" to tempt the lover of Navajo jewelry.

Inside Tuba gates are clustered the usual buildings of a reservation community: laundry, power house, garage, road and construction offices, warehouse. Few people are aware that every service which city dwellers take for granted must be furnished by Government employees on a reservation. Roads, power and heat, running water, maintenance of buildings, and many more necessities of civilization come from the Indian Service; nothing is derived elsewhere.

To the left, across the athletic field, are the school buildings, for Tuba is the site of a large boarding school. Farther up the street is the 28-bed hospital, which serves the entire western third of the reservation. There are other schools at Navajo Mountain, Kaibeto, Kayenta, Dennehotso and Shonto, but there is no other hospital. So far as it is concerned, the Tuba City area extends from the Colorado river on the north to far below the boundary on the south, from Grand Canyon on the west to the Hopi country and half way across Black Mountain to the east, for it draws patients from all of these places. Indians even come to this hospital from Williams and the Navajo Ordnance Depot at Bellemont.

Tuba still looks much like the sleepy little Mormon settlement that it was originally. There are about 126 buildings in all, counting barns, root cellars and incinerators. Several of the old Mormon houses survive and are in use. The actual population of Tuba City today is not much more than the Mormon ward of 1900 with 150 persons. This does not, of course, count the hundred or so Navajos who live outside the gates, or the population of the double community of upper and lower Moencopi, two miles to the southeast, which have around a thousand inhabitants.

Moencopi was built a little earlier than Tuba, but when Garces passed through there in 1776 he found another village, already in ruins, on its site. Today, outlines of prehistoric pit-houses may be seen on the grounds of the day

Scented scented flowers. Itis, violets, pinles, roses, zinnias, hollyhocks, dahlias, cosmos follow each other faithfully, but for sunio repson soveet, peas refese to grose woll here. The people of Toba suvel in their supply of cool, pire pu spring water, and use aliout 200,000 gallons of it daily for Call parposes.

There are plenies, ton, Two fuvered spots are Mnenave, site of an abandoned, day school, and Cool Canyon, where a perfeely good "ghost" (emused by the effect of foll moo light on a rock pillar in a canyon) zises eszily for the bebeit of imaginative beholders... Tuba City people love their continmity. When trans fer thue comes they frequently leave with tears in their eyes. This is one of the few peaceful places left on cush The strain and unrest chantieristle of modern American efties has not reached into the reservatión. Radio and the mail which coines three times a week are enough conmot With the outside world The Indians themselves are people whin improve on aquaintance, Their complete prise complete poise and live-fot-today only philosophy make them adtuirable, and treie quick senso of humor gives them great charm. Even the ever-present sand is clean and picturesque. No wonder it has been a chosen site for the peoples of all time.