Kirk Brothers Trading Company, Gallup: History, Smiths & Stamps

Kirk Brothers Trading Company was a Gallup, New Mexico trading post run by the Kirk family, who "hired eight or ten smiths to make jewelry for sale to tourists" (Bedinger 1973, p. 119). The Kirks were traders. The jewelry was made by the Navajo and Zuni smiths they employed. Two sources date the post differently, 1881 and 1920, and we give both below. Our sources don't record when it closed.

Founding

Two accounts, and they don't agree. Bille Hougart's hallmark reference, the book we use to identify marks, says "The Trading Post opened in Gallup, NM in 1881; it was owned and operated by Mike Kirk (from 1921 until his death in 1942) and by sons John and Tom Kirk" (Hougart 2022, p. 363).

The family's own account is later and more specific. In 1945 Mrs. John Kirk wrote about the post, and Margery Bedinger quoted her in her history Indian Silver: her husband "bought the McAdams trading post at Gallup in 1920, changed its name to Kirk Brothers, and hired eight or ten smiths to make jewelry for sale to tourists" (Bedinger 1973, p. 119). So Hougart gives 1881 and Mrs. Kirk gives 1920. The two sources also name different Kirks: Mrs. Kirk says her husband, John, bought it, while Hougart names Mike as the owner from 1921. Our sources don't settle either point. The earlier post, McAdams, is known to us only from that one line in Bedinger. We have no first name for McAdams and no founding date.

The Kirks traded in more than silver. Ted Johnson, a Nevada turquoise miner, sold turquoise in Gallup to leading traders, among them the Kirk brothers (Chambless & Ryan 2021, p. 189). Mike Kirk was a director of the United Indian Traders Association (UITA), alongside C. G. Wallace, Ramon Hubbell and others (Hougart 2020, p. 135). Gallup's Tanner's Indian Arts "was also associated with the Indian Arts and Crafts Center and Kirk Brothers Trading Company" (Hougart 2022, p. 370).

People

The traders. Several men named Kirk run through the record. Our sources don't say how most of them were related, so we don't build a family tree here. Hougart's UITA roster lists "5 Kirk Brothers Trading Post, Gallup, NM (John Jr. and Tom Kirk)" (Hougart 2020, p. 138). John Kirk also "Operated" Borrego Pass Trading Post near Chaco Canyon "in 1920s", before selling it to Vernon Bloomfield (Hougart 2022, p. 354), and "also owned the Coyote Canyon Trading Post from 1945-1948" (Hougart 2020, p. 149). A trader Bedinger calls "John J. Kirk of Chinle" asked a silver refinery for coin-silver disks the size of pesos, after Mexico stopped exporting them. The refinery "sent small squares of coin silver" instead (Bedinger 1973, p. 46). Our sources don't say whether he was the Gallup John Kirk.

Mrs. John Kirk, the witness. Bedinger cites Mrs. Kirk's 1945 account again and again. We have no first name for her. She recorded that around 1910 Navajos used one- and two-ounce bracelets "in lieu of money for buying supplies at the trading post" (Bedinger 1973, p. 89). She got the story of the first piece of historic inlay directly from Teddy Weahkee of Zuni, who cut its stones about 1935 (Bedinger 1973, p. 147). Mrs. Kirk reported that some traders resented the government subsidy of the Navajo guild, yet she wrote, "The overall results of the Arts and Crafts Board effort have been good" (Bedinger 1973, p. 121). Her description of the Kirk shop's own work should be read as a trader's wife describing her family's business: "Only the finest quality turquoise was used and the styles were the classical Navaho. Highest standards of craftsmanship were encouraged" (Bedinger 1973, p. 119).

Dean Kirk at Manuelito. Dean Kirk was a trader, and he had his own post. "Dean Kirk opened his Dean Kirk Trading Post near Manuelito in the late 1940s. The Post's shop evolved into a silversmith production workshop and in the mid-to late-1950s had essentially phased out of selling general goods" (Hougart 2022, p. 363). Mark Bahti, in his profiles of American Indian jewelers, describes "a small store on the old Route 66 not far from Manuelito". He writes that "Manuelito Canyon was home to a large number of silversmiths, many of whom, like her father, worked for the late Dean Kirk". The woman in that line is Frances Jones, who "too worked for Kirk" (Bahti 2007, p. 70). Our sources don't say whether Dean was a son or a brother of the Gallup Kirks.

The smiths. Our sources name these makers as working for the Kirks:

  • Ike Wilson (Navajo) worked for John Kirk and Mike Kirk (Hougart 2020, p. 104).
  • William "Billy" Goodluck (Navajo) worked for John Kirk (Hougart 2022, p. 129). His story is told on the Good Luck family page.
  • Sam Jackson (Navajo) worked for Mike Kirk (Hougart 2022, p. 152).
  • Allen Chee (Navajo) worked for John Kirk (Hougart 2022, p. 86).
  • Kee Chee (Navajo; cast work) "Worked for Mike Kirk and Dean Kirk" (Hougart 2022, p. 87).
  • The Navajo smith with the mark "L. MORGAN" "Worked for Mike Kirk" (Hougart 2022, p. 215).
  • David Tsikewa (Zuni) worked for John J. Kirk Jr., among other traders (Hougart 2020, p. 96).
  • Sam Begay (Navajo) "was trained in sand casting by Kirk traders at Manuelito, NM" (Hougart 2022, p. 54).
  • Willie A. Yazzie, Sr. (Navajo) "worked for Dean Kirk Trading Post at Manuelito, New Mexico, in the early 1950s" and "made the gourd dipper stamp c.1960 while working at Kirk's" (Hougart 2020, p. 105).
  • Johnny Mike Begay (Navajo) "worked with Dean Kirk Trading Post" as well as White Hogan Silver and the Gallup Indian Trading Company (Hougart 2020, p. 12).

Marks and what to look for

Hougart records two UITA stamps for the family. Kirk Brothers in Gallup carried "Mark: UITA 5" (Hougart 2022, p. 363), and the roster lists number 5 under John Jr. and Tom Kirk (Hougart 2020, p. 138). Dean Kirk Trading Post carried "Mark: UITA 22" (Hougart 2022, p. 363), listed as "22 Dean Kirk Trading Post, Manuelito, NM" (Hougart 2020, p. 139). Borrego Pass Trading Post's mark was UITA 6 (Hougart 2022, p. 354).

A UITA number is a trade-association mark, and it identifies the dealer, not the maker. It tells you which post sold the piece. It doesn't name the smith, and it doesn't guarantee the piece is authentic. To find the maker, look for a personal hallmark such as K. Y. CHEE (Hougart 2022, p. 87) or L. MORGAN (Hougart 2022, p. 215).

Legacy

The Kirks' clearest mark on the record is the people who passed through their posts. They include Ike Wilson, Kee Chee and Willie Yazzie, Sr., and at Manuelito, in Bahti's telling, many of the canyon's smiths (Bahti 2007, p. 70). The other is Mrs. Kirk's 1945 account, which Bedinger used for the Weahkee inlay story and for her picture of trading-post silver around 1910 (Bedinger 1973, pp. 89, 147). Our sources don't record when Kirk Brothers closed, and they give no street address in Gallup.

From the Library: Ryan & Chambless, Turquoise in America Part Two: 1910–1990 (2020)

2020 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2020, not today.

According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 46), the Gallup Chamber of Commerce, with the Kiwanis Club, appointed Mike Kirk president of the first Inter-Tribal Ceremonial, held in September 1922, the first effort to bring different tribes together to attract the growing tourist market. [6]

According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 46), the Kirk Brothers were among the wholesalers, located mainly in Gallup, from whom reservation traders obtained their trade goods, alongside the C. N. Cotton Company, Gallup Mercantile and Gross Kelly. [6]

These are outside observers' records of the trade; the Navajo (Diné), Zuni and other nations are the authority on their own history.

Tom Kirk recalled, in an account published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 107), that his father John sold the post at Chinle in 1912, worked in Gallup as general manager for C. N. Cotton until 1920, and then bought the J. H. McAdams Post across the bridge from the Cotton Company, enlarging it into a general-merchandise wholesaler for reservation trading posts. [6]

Tom Kirk recalled, in an account published by Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 108), that his uncle Mike Kirk had worked for Cozy McSparron at Chinle and run a post at Coyote Canyon, that John helped Mike buy the store at Manuelito, New Mexico, where Mike built a wide wholesale jewelry trade, and that John kept the Kirk Brothers name expecting Tom and his brother Dude (John Jr.) to run the store one day. [6]

According to Ryan & Chambless (2020, p. 108), Mike Kirk proposed a Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial at a Kiwanis Club meeting in March 1922 and led the first Ceremonial that August, with support from Joe Baldwin Tanner; it was the showcase for Native American art until the rise of Santa Fe Indian Market in the 1970s and made Gallup the center of the turquoise trade for many years. [6]

From the Library: Adair, The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths (1944)

1944 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 1944, not today.

In 1944, Adair recorded how many smiths one Kirk post kept busy during his fieldwork:

“During the same summer (1938) there were sixty smiths working for Mike Kirk's post at Manuelito, which is between Gallup and Pine Springs.”
— Adair (1944), p. 115 [7]

Adair (1944, p. 115) added that in the winter of that same year, when smiths made more silver, seventy-nine craftsmen worked for that one post, against fourteen at Pine Springs in 1938. [7]

From the Library: Schaaf, American Indian Jewelry I (2003)

2003 primary source. Anything described as current here describes 2003, not today.

Schaaf (2003, p. 61) listed Wilbur (Wilbert) Anderson, a Navajo maker of hand-cast silver jewelry who stamped WA in combined initials and lived at Manuelito, New Mexico, as associated with the Kirk traders at Manuelito, along with Sam Begay, Maggie Bitsui and Betty Rose Billie. [8]

Schaaf (2003, p. 79) recorded Sam Begay, a Navajo smith of Manuelito active from the mid-1930s into the 1980s, as a smith for the Kirks, Woodards and Turpen, and named the Kirks as his teachers. [8]

Schaaf (2003, p. 85) named the Kirks as the teachers of Betty Rose Billie of Manuelito Canyon, a Navajo maker of sandcast and tufa-cast jewelry who stamped BRB from 1976, and listed her associations as the Kirks at Manuelito, Woodards, Tanner's Indian Arts and Indian Hammers. [8]

Schaaf (2003, p. 113) recorded the Navajo channel-inlay smith Joe Chee, born about 1910 at Lukachukai, as associated with the Kirks from 1958 to 1970 and with Joe Tanner from 1970 to 1974. [8]

Schaaf (2003, p. 321) listed among Teddy Weahkee's commissions a necklace with Hawikku pottery designs for Frederick W. Hodge of the Bureau of American Ethnology, arranged by Kirk Brothers, traders of Gallup and Zuni. [8]

Lee Weebothee told Schaaf (2003, p. 323) that he and his wife Mary sold their jewelry to C.G. Wallace, R.L. Wallace and Dude Kirk, and that Dude Kirk asked them not to sell anywhere else. [8]

Of Dude Kirk, Lee Weebothee told Schaaf (2003):

“He was selling our bracelets as fast as we could make them.”
— Schaaf (2003), p. 323 [8]

Field Notes by Mateo James

Tom Kirk, John's son, in the account Ryan & Chambless (2020) published, also has his father buying the J. H. McAdams Post after 1920 and has his uncle Mike running the store at Manuelito. That matches Mrs. Kirk's version rather than Hougart's, and it gives McAdams his initials. I tend to side with Ryan & Chambless, and I have left Hougart's line on the page.

A note on accuracy. We strive for accuracy, and this page is continuously updated with new information from the artists, their families, and the community. Corrections welcome.

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Sources

  1. Bahti, Mark. Silver + Stone: Profiles of American Indian Jewelers. 2007. p. 70.
  2. Bedinger, Margery. Indian Silver: Navajo and Pueblo Jewelers. 1973. pp. 46, 89, 119, 121, 147 (quoting Mrs. John Kirk, 1945).
  3. Chambless, Philip, and Mike Ryan II. Turquoise in America, Part One: The Great American Turquoise Rush, 1890–1910. 2021. p. 189.
  4. Hougart, Bille. 100 Collectible Native American Silversmiths. 2020. pp. 12, 96, 104, 105, 135, 138, 139, 149.
  5. Hougart, Bille. Native American and Southwestern Silver Hallmarks, 5th ed. 2022. pp. 54, 86, 87, 129, 152, 215, 354, 363, 370.
  6. Ryan, Mike, II, and Philip Chambless. Turquoise in America, Part Two: 1910–1990. Callais Press, 2020. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2020.
  7. Adair, John. The Navajo and Pueblo Silversmiths. The Civilization of the American Indian Series. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 1944.
  8. Schaaf, Gregory, with Angie Yan Schaaf. American Indian Jewelry I: 1,200 Artist Biographies, ca. 1800-present. American Indian Art Series, Vol. 5. Santa Fe: CIAC Press, 2003. Cited by printed page. Statements describe conditions as of 2003.

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