Borrego Pass, New Mexico

Borrego Pass is an unincorporated community consisting of two Navajo communities[1] and a trading post in the Navajo lands of McKinley County, in northwestern New Mexico, United States. In Navajo its name is Dibé Yázhí Habitiin,[2] meaning "Upward Path of the Lamb."

Borrego Pass is located on Navajo Route 48, twelve air miles and fifteen miles by road southeast of Crownpoint.[3]

History

The community formed around the Borrego Pass Trading Post which was opened in 1927 and was first operated by Ben and Anna Harvey,[4] and then starting in 1935 by Bill and Jean Cousins.[5] It was sold in 1939 to Don and Fern Smouse who operated it for over forty years. The trading post was named after the nearby Borrego Pass[6] an ancient water gap, across the Continental Divide,[7] that cuts into the Dutton Plateau.[8]

Attractions

There is a Navajo school at Borrego Pass, the Borrego Pass School (Dibé Yázhí Habitiin Óltaʼ) which was established in the early 1950s.[1] In 1972, it became one of the first contract schools of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (B.I.A.).

Notes
  1. Iverson, Peter (1983) The Navajo Nation University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico, volume 2, pages 144–145, ISBN 0-8263-0652-7
  2. Bright, William (2004) Native American placenames of the United States University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, page 71 ISBN 0-8061-3576-X
  3. Eddington, Patrick and Makov, Susan (1995) Trading post guidebook: where to find the trading posts, galleries, auctions, artists, and museums of the Four Corners region Northland Publishing, Flagstaff, Arizona, pages 133-134, ISBN 0-87358-612-3
  4. "Trading post listed as 'historic place'" Archived July 13, 2011, at the Wayback Machine KRQE News 25 October 2010
  5. Cousins, Jean; Cousins, Bill and Engels, Mary Tate (1996) Tales from Wide Ruins: Jean and Bill Cousins, traders Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock, Texas, pages 77–85, ISBN 0-89672-368-2
  6. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Borrego Pass, New Mexico
  7. Julyan, Robert (1998) "Borrego Pass" The Place Names of New Mexico (revised edition) University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, New Mexico, page 46, ISBN 0-8263-1689-1
  8. Lekson, Stephen H. (1999) The Chaco meridian: centers of political power in the ancient Southwest Altamira Press, Walnut Creek, California, page 119, ISBN 0-7619-9180-8

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