Recollections of the Pow Wow

"After the Show in 1939, the Pow Wow committee invited me to a lunch and asked me if I would like to be on the Pow Wow committee. I felt that was quite an honor and privilege . . . . I got started doing the announcing for the Pow Wow by just being there. They had a very excellent announcer for the night show, Howard Pyle, former governor of the . . . . Howard was an announcer with radio KTAR."
Andrew L. Wolf, NAU.OH.28.43
Flagstaff Public Library Oral History Collection

 

"They encouraged the Indians to develop their lifestyle, and for the first few years that they had the Pow Wow they had community food preparation. It was a good trading time--the Indians would bring their rugs and their jewelry and things and come to town and trade for the things that they wanted. It truly was trading; there was not so much money involved. Oh, a lot of tourists came, up to nearly World War II, the Indians nearly always came in their wagons and it was a big thing for them. You know it was maybe once a year that they'd get to town and that was how they came."
Elizabeth Dobrinski, NAU.OH.28.13
Flagstaff Public Library Oral History Collection

"Well of course it was started a long time before I was on the board, but as you may know, at that time it was a rather small committee of about a half a dozen local businessmen. And, they put on the pow wow, the rodeo, the Indian dances, and then sometimes we had the big name bands coming in, and we had other dances for the white people. Tommy Knoles and his crew used to feed all the Indians when they were in town, and that was finally dropped. But the attendance by numbers I couldn't give you, but it ran into the thousands, of course."
John G. Babbitt, NAU.OH.28.4
Flagstaff Public Library Oral History Collection

 

"Many years later I asked a Navajo man in Tuba City if he remembered going to the Pow Wow in Flagstaff all those years ago? His face turned to smiles and he talked for some time about being a boy and riding in a wagon the days that it took to reach the mountains . . . he said it had been the very best of times. I thought so too."
Betty Walker Quayle

 

Introduction  |  Early years  |  Recollections  |  Language  |  Final years