Gallup
A Railroad And Trading Town On Route 66 At The Edge Of The Navajo Nation, With A Downtown Historic District Of Trading Posts And Pawn Shops And The Long Running Inter Tribal Indian Ceremonial · Gallup, New Mexico
Gallup grew out of a coal camp and a railroad stop in 1881, sits on Route 66 at the western edge of New Mexico, and has spent a century as the trading town for the Navajo Nation to the north and Zuni to the south. That is what makes it worth stopping in: the downtown holds a concentration of trading posts, pawn shops and wholesale rooms found nowhere else, where Navajo and Zuni silver, turquoise, rugs and fetish carvings are bought and sold in volume rather than presented to tourists. Dead pawn - pieces pledged against a loan and never redeemed - is a real category here and a complicated one. The El Rancho Hotel on Route 66 housed the film crews who shot westerns in the red rock country around the town, and the Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial has been running since 1922. Nightly Native dances are performed downtown through the summer, free and on a published schedule, and the red rock country east of town holds the ceremonial arena. Gallup is also the supply town for an enormous area, which is worth knowing before driving north or west of it.
201 East Historic Highway 66, Gallup, Gallup, New Mexico, 87301, United States
The downtown streets are public and open at all hours. Trading posts and pawn shops generally open mid-morning and close in the late afternoon, and a number close on Sundays. The Gallup Cultural Center in the old Santa Fe depot keeps daytime hours. Nightly Native dances have been performed downtown in the summer months on a published schedule. The Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial runs for several days in summer and its dates and venue have moved.