Blanding’s Forgotten History

Aiyanna walked into the Blanding Trading Post, clutching the one-dollar trading token in her hand. Earlier that week she’d sold a blanket to the trader. He had examined it carefully, pleased with its beauty, symmetry, and durability, and he understood the spirit pathway she’d woven into the border, so her spirit intertwined in the blanket could escape. Then, they had bartered for the things she needed most: Flour, baking powder, coffee, and canned tomatoes. He also gave her the token to redeem later.
Now, two men wearing broad-brimmed hats stood at the back counter, joking with the trader, giving Aiyanna a chance to look around. A potbellied stove stood in the middle of the store along with barrels filled with beans. Three long, high counters ran along the back and sides of the post. Pots, tubs, ropes, bridles, and hats hung from the ceiling. Bolts of colorful cloth, scarves, and hard tack candy lined the top of one counter. A glass case filled with jewelry sat on the opposite one, and the trader had shelved canned goods, bags of Blue Bird flour, boots, tools, tobacco, and cigarette paper behind the back counter. What Aiyanna wanted was a new coffee pot and a scarf to protect her hair from the wild spring wind. She spent some time deliberating and finally picked a pot that seemed practical and a scarf with bright, beautiful colors. The men greeted her as she walked up to the counter and teased her about her purchases as the trader punched her token, returned it to her, and carefully counted out a few smaller tokens for her to spend later.
The above scene is, of course, fictional, but it’s based on traditional trading post practices. In addition to bartering and pawning, traders created tokens out of aluminum, tin, or brass as a way to buy and sell goods. They embossed the tokens with the specific name of the trading post, or if the trader operated more than one post, with the trader’s name.
Our interest in tokens began at Christmas when Robert and Valarie Turk gave us one as a gift. The Turks are educators at Blanding Elementary. Valarie is a preschool teacher, especially gifted at helping at-risk students gain a solid foundation for future schooling, and Robert is a fifth grade rockstar. He’s also a historian. An expert in the Civil War, the World Wars, and the Long Walk, he’s taken his fifth grade classes on field trips in Westwater, reenacting the forced march to Fort Sumner in the 1860s, complete with soldiers mounted on horses. Because of his many efforts in and out of the classroom, history has come alive for countless students.
After Robert gave Ted the token at Christmas, I peered at it, and part of Blanding’s forgotten history also began coming alive for us. On the front of the token, we read, “Blanding Trading Post * Blanding, Utah.” On the back, “Good for $1.00 in Trade.” The brass token, about the size of a silver dollar, was encased in hard plastic with information across the top, reading, “No Date/ PCGS Genuine/ Environmental Damage—AU Detail.”
Although not much is known about the Blanding Trading Post, it was located on Main Street in a two-story, log-fronted building where the Ice Cream Parlor on the first floor and Cyber Native Designs LLC on the second are located now. The Powell brothers, Junius Lawrence (June) and Claude, operated it probably in the 1930’s and 40’s. We don’t know if they constructed the building, but trading post businesses ran in their family. LaVerne Tate, June’s daughter, wrote in her book, Images of America: Early San Juan County, that her granddad, Reuben Eugene (Gene) Powell, worked in Tuba City where June was born and spoke fluent Navajo. Later, in 1907, he was farming outside of Cortez, Colorado, when a Bluff freighter was killed nearby. After he took the man’s body back to Bluff, the residents told him they needed another freighter, so in 1908 he, his wife, Ida May Foutz, and their children moved to Bluff. He freighted for a year and then worked at the Frank Hyde Trading Post. His wife, May, served as the town’s midwife even though they eventually had eleven children, three of which died young. Later still, Gene became a San Juan County Deputy Sheriff, and Claude took over running the Frank Hyde Trading Post after the owner moved. In 1943, June built the Powell Trading Post in Bluff and operated it until 1957 when he retired. No doubt, those trading posts also furnished tokens.
Over the years, it’s estimated that 40 to 50 trading posts issued tokens. Although the U.S. government outlawed their use in the 1930s when U.S. currency became more available, some tokens stayed in circulation until the 50s. Eventually, the Navajo Nation government encouraged Native-run businesses on the reservation, and the number of trading posts dwindled from a peak of more than 100 to 35 in 1970 to even fewer now.
The Blanding Trading Post tokens are tangible evidence of forgotten local history, and as Ted held ours, it connected us to a time when purchasing practices were much different than the plastic cards and Amazon shopping of today—when a trader understood the value and beauty of a handwoven blanket as well as its “spirit line,” and when its trade earned the artist coffee pots, flour, canned goods, and beautiful scarves.
If anyone has more information about the Blanding Trading Post or its tokens, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact palmermerry@yahoo.com