Elevation:  8,000'

Location:  Washington Pass, NM, high in the Chuska Mountain Range, west of Highway 666 that leads from Gallup to Farmington. (New Mexico)

ESTABLISHED:  In 1896, John B. Moore from Sheridan, Wyoming purchased an interest in the post, originally established in 1894 and known as Cottonwood Pass.   In 1897 he purchased the entire interest in the post and renamed it "Crystal" after a very pure and sparkling mountain spring that ran by the post.  He left the Navajo Reservation in the autumn of 1911.

The remoteness of the Crystal area and the fact that winter business was fairly limited led Moore to issue a mail order catalog, a newly developed American merchandizing technique popularized by Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward.  He starts off his first catalog of 1903 thus:

"While this Booklet makes no claim of being a pioneer in its field, I think it may justly claim to be the first of its kind published and distributed from the very center of the Navajo Indian Reservation by an Indian Trader living among and dealing directly with the Indians who make the goods which it illustrates and describes."

THE RUG:  Moore obviously had a strong feeling for Navajo weaving and this comes across in his catalogs.  He was instrumental in promoting a bordered rug style, more suited to the tastes of Anglo buyers.  However, all the styles in his 1903 catalog, and the individual leaflets, are based on traditional Navajo weaving patterns common in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, sometimes with borders added, sometimes almost indistinguishable from blankets of twenty to thirty years earlier.  Designs included "Old Chief Pattern", diamonds, cross, whirling logs, etc. Many of the rugs were three-color of red, white and black; gray, black and white; also natural brown and indigo blue, or navy. 

The following is an excerpt from the 1903 catalog.  "A word as to colors:  It will be noted that in the illustrations only white, red, black, navy and gray appear.  As a matter of fact a blanket may have a little orange, green, or yellow, one or more of these colors in it; but very few have, and these will never be sent except upon special request to any mail order customer.  I have no purples, magentas, browns, etc. to send any one.  Faulty colors make inferior blankets, and all second and first grades will be in good and perfect colors."

We can assume that Moore and his wife were very successful with their mail order business for a larger, more impressive, catalog was issued in 1911.  It is Moore's 1911 catalog that shows a real change in the styles being produced at his post with the much discussed oriental rug motifs with multiple borders, large central medallions, and with numerous hooks, "airplanes", and filler elements in the background.   It is this catalog which presents the new "oriental" type patterns which were to take over the rug market in the twentieth century, moving from Crystal to Two Grey Hills to Ganado, with regional variations in coloration.

Moore left the Navajo Reservation in 1911, and his influence lived long after him.  His partner, Jesse Molohon, continued the business and the styles that Moore and his best weavers developed long afterwards.  In fact, the old styles did not end at Crystal until around l940, as reported to Frank McNitt by Desbah Nez, daughter if Yeh-del-spah-bi-Man, one of Moore's weavers.

Moore was one of the great pioneers in the field of Navajo weaving and was instrumental in changing it from blanket to rug.  He, along with other traders of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, saw that the future of weaving lay with adapting to the changes in Anglo taste, adaptations that are still being carried on by weavers and traders working together.

Around 1940, a vegetal revival style was taken up by Crystal. Mary Cabot Wheelwright, a Boston philanthropist encouraged weavers to develop and use softer colors derived from native dyed plants.  The first dye experiments produced shades of gold and green, but soon weavers experimented with more dyes to get an extraordinary range of colors not seen in older weaving.

Source:  J. B. Moore, United States Licensed Indian Trader, The Catalogues of Fine Navajo Blankets, Rugs, Ceremonial Baskets, Silverware, Jewelry & Curios, originally published between 1903 and 1911, New Material copyrighted 1987,  Avanyu Publishing, Inc., Albuquerque, NM (Pages 1, 2, 3, 23)

Weaving of the Southwest, Marian Rodee, 1987, Schiffer Publishing Ltd., Atglen, PA, (Pages 89, 99)