THE LOST TRADING POST

A TRADING POST LOST IN TIME BESIDE AN OLD WAGON ROAD THE PHANTOM OF WILLOW SPRINGS

Or travelers crossing the Colorado River at Lees Ferry in the 1870s and '80s, the lurching, jolting wagon ride out of Marble Canyon and the seemingly unending ascent beside the Echo Cliffs was an ordeal they wished never to repeat.

The arid landscape, the barrier of the towering yellow and red cliffs, and the nearly complete lack of drinkable water made the trip a hellish experience.

So it is no wonder that when travelers reached Willow Springs, at the head of Hamblin Wash where the Echo Cliffs began flattening out at the south end of the Kaibito Plateau, they stopped for several days of welcome rest.

And there, on a small rocky knoll, they carved their names, the dates, and pointed comments into the soft rock. This was a time-honored tradition. On the opposite side of thisknoll, ancient Anasazi Indians did the same thing, but in a now-lost language of petroglyph symbols.

A few years after the arrival of the white travelers, a large stone building was constructed there to provide food and supplies for them and trade items for the Navajos living in scattered hogans throughout this vast wilderness of rock and sand. Today the ruins of the trading post stand

Baking in the sun, untouched by vandals although its high walls are visible from U.S. Route 89, the highway connecting Flagstaff with Page and Lees Ferry.

This is due, I believe, to the fact that the walls are built of red sandstone, the same color as the surrounding earth. Unless you have sharp eyes and know where to look, the ruins tend to blend into the ground.

Another reason is the protective instincts of the Navajos whose homes dot the nearby wash. Any strange car or truck motoring over the dirt road to the ruins is an object of instant curiosity, and soon an Indian or two will saunter over and check out the visitor.

But, still, the lack of graffiti and trash around the ruins was strikingAnd the only sign of visitors in this century was a faint scratching of a date more than 60 years old that I found on one of the stones that make up the walls.

A faint trace of the old wagon road can still be seen beside the onetime trading post.

Willow Springs, leaking out of a horizontal layer of rock, sits high up on the cliffs at a spot marked by green willow trees which are nourished by the seeps. The Navajo name for the springs is Apa'to, or "lost springs."

Water at one time may have flowed from the springs and through the wash that crosses in front of the trading post. Or there may have been a subterranean flow that the early travelers tapped by digging shallow holes in the wash.

More probably, people drove their livestock to the base of the springs to water them and then carried drinking water back to the post. The number of names on the rocks around the springs makes this a likely theory.

The late Richard Van Valkenburgh, an expert on archaeology within the Navajo reservation, believed that the Spanish priests and explorers Francisco Atanasio Dominquez and Francisco Silvestre Velez de Escalante were the first white men to stop at the springs, in 1776. Van Valkenburgh is quoted in Frank McNitt's book The Indian Traders.

Legendary explorer and Indian peacemaker Jacob Hamblin often stopped at Willow Springs, and Hamblin Wash is named for him.

I found a veritable register of early settlers inscribed on the rocky knoll. It included the names of Lorenzo Watson and John H. Perkins, January 10, 1878; J.A. Swap, January 5, 1883; S.U. Porter, 1880; C. Hall, 1878; G.C. Naile, May 6, 1880; P. Thomson, December, 1879; J.L. Butler, M.A. Anderson, Daniel E. Judd, J.P. Johnson,Nathan Potter, and A. Walleck, all in the month of December, 1877. There were many more names plus colorful symbols such as a large deeply carved anchor and a human skull painted with axle grease from a wagon hub. Someone made an inscription on November 29, 1879, calling the place "Camp Windy." The Indian carvings on the back side of the hill were just as impressive. I found several petroglyphs of bighorn sheep heads with double curls in their horns. Other animals depicted included one with great sweeping horns extending completely over its back, resembling for all the world a South African sable antelope. There also were numerous symbols like concentric circles, mazes, lightning strikes, monster men, and a host of unrecognizable rock peckings.

WILLOW SPRINGS

Just who built the trading post and when is a mystery. P.T. Reilly, a Sun City historian and writer on the Colorado River and the Mormon expeditions, said the four Babbitt brothers ran an assortment of trading posts on the Navajo reservation, and at one time they owned the post at Willow Springs. "After the federal government bought out the Mormon interests on the Hopi and Navajo reservations in 1903, there was a kind of free-for-all to fill the trading vacuum that was created," Reilly said. "Trading posts were started up, changed hands, or failed. A lot of the buildings of cut stone erected by Mormon traders and settlers were knocked down, and the stones were used for other buildings by non-Mormon traders," he said. Author Frank McNitt said one trader, Samuel S. Preston, worked with Charles Babbitt at the Red Lake Trading Post in 1890 as a partner and resident manager. Preston, a skilled builder, was a native of Kentucky and came west in the mid-1880s. He split temporarily with the Babbitts in 1894 and moved to Willow Springs. Then, in 1895, he married and moved to Tuba City, where he again joined the Babbitts in their trading empire. McNitt said Preston was neither the first nor the last trader to do business at Willow Springs, indicating that the building there was constructed at an earlier time. Reilly agrees, saying that some kind of structure was built by unidentified Mormons at the Willow Springs site. Preston, he said, knocked down the earlier building and used some of the stones in the much larger trading post. When Preston moved to Tuba City, he apparently kept his interest in Willow Springs and ran it with a resident manager until the growth of the Tuba City business required his undivided attention. Preston built well. The walls are up to three feet thick and morethan 20 feet high. The main building is a rectangle over 60 feet long with an attached corral made of stone walls with a large front gate. The corral is big enough to hold several teams of horses or mules plus wagons. The ruins of the main section consist of one large room which may have been the storehouse and several other rooms with big windows facing west which may have been offices and living quarters. One of these rooms, at the southwest corner, could have been the "bull pen," which in a typical trading post was the place where the white trader and his Indian customers bargained for trade goods. The only sign of modern use of the ruins is a small wall within one room that Navajos apparently built as a pen for their sheep. Altogether, the ruins of this early trading post are a remarkable historical treasure, all the more valuable for the location along this ancient travel route. The old post truly links the white man's history -beginning with the lumbering Mormon wagons to the shadowy days when the sandaled feet of the Anasazi, Ute, and Navajo Indians trod this land.

Additional Reading: For more about the Navajos and Hopis, we recommend Indian Country: A Guide to Northeastern Arizona. In this 64-page softcover book, author Tom Dollar guides you through the tribes' vast and rugged lands, providing both insight and information on the people and the scenic attractions of the reservations. With Dollar, you also visit Monument Valley, Canyon de Chelly, Lake Powell, and the Painted Desert. The book costs $9.95 plus shipping and handling. To order, telephone toll-free (800) 5435432. In the Phoenix area or outside the U.S., call (602) 258-1000.

WHEN YOU GO

You can't drive all the way to the trading post ruins, but must stop just short of the knoll that contains the names of early-day travelers and Anasazi petroglyphs. There are no highway signs indicating the ruins. If you drive from Flagstaff, turn right at Milepost 487 and take the graded dirt road across the wash. Immediately after leaving the wash, turn left onto a rough two-track road and follow it to the knoll. On the right is a large white water tank. From the road, you can see the ruins on an open flat a hundred yards away. Please, for others who come after you, do not disturb the ruins. Such an untouched historical site must be protected. Also, it is a federal crime to dig or remove artifacts from the land. For more information about visiting the reservation, contact the Navajoland Tourism office, (520) 871-6659.