Editor s note: This article is a part of a series reviewing Utah and U.S. history for KSL.com s Historic section.
BLANDING, San Juan County A significant Navajo Nation trading post at the heart of Monument Valley in southeast Utah received major recognition Thursday as efforts begin to save it before it s possibly lost forever.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation named the Oljato Trading Post one of its 11 most endangered historic sites in the United States this year, which highlights it as one of the more important historic sites in desperate need of rehabilitation to preserve it.
The listing comes as members of the Navajo Nation and also historians have started to look into ways to rehabilitate the structures tied to the trading post and turn them into a new community center and tourism destination at the center of growing popular outdoors spots like Monument Valley and Bears Ears National Monument.
In recent years, some Colorado cities and colleges have publicly recognized the land they are on as the traditional and ancestral homelands of Indigenous nations and peoples. These are known as land acknowledgment statements. A new class at Colorado State University is using them to help examine the reconciliation work that still needs to be done.
Energy developers and uranium miners are eyeing parts of what once was Bears Ears National Monument, even as President Joe Biden is reviewing the monument for expansion.