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NAVAJO
COUNTY
Navajo County was formed on March 21,1895, as the final act of the
Territorial Assembly before it adjourned at midnight. What is now
Navajo County was first included in Yavapai County, but in 1879, the
area was added to the newly formed Apache County.
By the time it became Navajo County, the area was developed the
railroad had crossed the county for more than a decade, and North
America's third largest ranch, the Aztec Land and Cattle Company near
Holbrook, had been established. Backed by
Easterners, Aztec bought 1 million acres of land from the railroad at
50 cents an acre. The company known as the Hashknife Outfit because of
its brand — brought 33,000 longhorn cattle and 2,200 horses into
northern Arizona from Texas. Holbrook, the county seat, was founded in
1871.
The county is divided into two distinct parts by the Mogollon Rim. The
high country in the northern part of the county is arid and desert-like
with empty mesas and smaller plateaus. The southern part is a rugged
mountain area, heavily wooded with pinion juniper and ponderosa pine.
In the north is Kayenta, founded in 1909 as a trading post, and now the
gateway to the Navajo Tribal Park at Monument Valley and a thriving
Navajo community. Farther south is the Hopi Indian Reservation, which
is completely surrounded by the Navajo Reservation. The Hopi Pueblo of
Oraibi is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the
United States.
Today, Navajo County's principal industries are tourism, coal mining,
manufacturing, timber production and ranching.
Almost 55 percent of Navajo County's 9,959 square miles is Indian
reservation land. Individual and corporate ownership accounts for 30
percent; the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management
together control 9 percent; and the state of Arizona owns 6 percent.
All of Navajo County is an Enterprise Zone.
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