Tag Archives: Navajo

Code Talkers Museum

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A Restaurant is Also A Memorial

Northern Arizona is part of the Navajo Nation.

I’ve been lucky enough to visit and photograph the immensely scenic Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. This iconic area is located on the Arizona-Utah so we stay overnight in the nearby town of Kayenta. Next door to the hotel is a Burger King restaurant where we can catch breakfast before going to the park.

But this Burger King is unlike any other that we’ve been to. Inside is an extensive display – a mini-museum if you will – of the Code Talkers. The Code Talkers were U.S. servicemen recruited from among the Native Americans (mostly Navajo) during World War II. Some 500 of these Navajo speakers used their language skills to code and transmit secret messages among the various military units. Dozens of volunteers were from the Kayenta area.

I’ve visited this Burger King multiple times over the years and each time the display has been enlarged and enhanced.

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It’s believed that our enemies were never able to decode any of the Code Talker messages.

The Burger King in Kayenta is a great place to stop to learn about these brave men who served and fought during World War II and the Korean War.

 
 
 

A Tunnel Over The Highway

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Black Mesa, Arizona

I have been driving back and forth annually along US 160 on my way to/from the Phoenix area for at least twenty years.

As an avid photographer, one of my favorite scenic locations is Monument Valley Navajo Trial Park located near in Kayenta, AZ. Not far from Kayenta I would pass by an unusual structure that crosses over the highway.

I was curious about this tunnel-like bridge in the area known as Black Mesa and did a search to see if I could find out the purpose of the structure. Here’s a little history about the two photographs below known as the Kayenta Mine.

Peabody Mining

Going back to 1964, Peabody Western Coal contracted with the Navajo and Hopi Tribes for the mineral rights on the mesa and use of its large underground aquifer. The company constructed two coal strip mines – one higher up on the mesa and a second in Kayenta.

The two operations regularly pumped 3 million gallons of water from the aquifer daily to wash and then transport a slurry of coal. Peabody constructed a 275-mile pipeline that carried the coal slurry to Laughlin, NV to generate electricity.

The coal mined in Kayenta was transported on a long conveyor belt (I called it an elevated tunnel) to a large silo. This coal was later shipped by train to the Navajo Generation Station in nearby Page, AZ.


The elevated conveyor carries coal across US Highway 160
The coal is stored in this silo awaiting transport by train to Page, AZ

Controversey Over Water Usage

The two tribes soon claimed that the use of so much water from the aquifer was causing a decline in the amount potable water for their personal, farming and livestock operations. Additionally, this volume of water was not in keeping with the tribes’ cultural and religious need for clean water.

By the end of the 1990s, opposition to Peabody’s strip mining of the mesa had taken hold and the Black Mesa Mine’s last day of operation was December 2008.

Operations at the Kayenta Mine ended in late 2019 as the Navajo Generation Station closed.

The overhead conveyor and silo are no longer in use but the Navajos and Hopis in Black Mesa are hoping for environmental mitigation to their sacred lands.

For more information about Black Mesa click here.