Ganado, Arizona

How Ganado is governed

Ganado appears to be an unincorporated community or a census-designated place, so it may have no city government of its own — services usually come from Apache County and its elected officials. The chart below is a generic template; readers can correct it if Ganado does have local officials.

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0 of 14 positions listed. Gray dashed boxes are placeholders waiting for a name.

• Mayor

  Executive

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  The city's chief elected official. Presides over the executive branch, proposes the budget and represents the city.

  • City Manager / Administrator

    Executive

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    The professional administrator who runs day-to-day operations (in some cities appointed by the council instead of the mayor).

    • Police Chief

      Administration & departments

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      Leads the police department.

    • Fire Chief

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      Leads the fire and emergency services department.

    • Public Works Director

      Administration & departments

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      Streets, water, sewer, and city buildings.

    • Finance Director

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      The budget, taxes, and city accounts.

    • Planning & Zoning Director

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      Land use, zoning, building permits.

    • Parks & Recreation Director

      Administration & departments

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      Parks, programs, and public facilities.

• City Council

  Legislative

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  The elected body that passes ordinances, sets the tax rate and approves the budget.

  • City Clerk

    Administration & departments

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    Keeps the official records, runs meeting agendas and, often, local elections.

  • City Attorney

    Administration & departments

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    The city's lawyer; advises officials and prosecutes ordinance violations.

  • Boards & Commissions

    Legislative

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    Citizen advisory bodies, such as planning, zoning appeals and library boards.

• Municipal Court

  Judicial

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  Hears traffic, ordinance and other minor cases.

  • Municipal Judge

    Judicial

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    Presides over the municipal court.

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Population over time

From 1,210 in 2010 to 883 in 2020 (−27.0%).

History

Ancients and legends

The earliest peoples in the region are believed to have been nomadic hunters in search of big game roaming throughout the Four Corners region. The next wave of inhabitants are believed to have been smaller hunter-gatherer communities of similar nomadic characteristic. It is believed that archaic forms of agriculture came to the Little Colorado River basin around 1800 BCE.

The first permanent residents of the Ganado region (comprising greater Ganado, Kinlichee, Burnside, and Cornfields) were the "Basketmaker" Ancestral Puebloan. The ruins of their homesteads are scattered throughout the Little Colorado River basin and Colorado Plateau, among the red clay hills surrounding Ganado, and on the escarpment to the west. Significant agricultural advancement was seen in the first millennium. The largest Puebloan ruin at Ganado is Wide Reeds Ruin, along the floodplain near the present-day Ganado Wash bridge; and it is believed to have been constructed around 1276.

Modern understanding of the historical record left behind by the Ancestral Puebloans exhibits a massive network of villages, storehouses, and fortified structures throughout the Colorado Plateau region. Stretching from Mesa Verde in the north, to Chaco Canyon in the east, to Keet Seel (Kitsʼiil) and Betatakin (Bitátʼahkin) and Wupatki in the west, trading routes can be traced through the Ganado region to as far south as Mexico. Pottery fragments found through the area show a wide array of design and utility, both local and foreign to Ganado. The largest population center in this era near Ganado, is 30 mi (50 km) to the north at Canyon de Chelly.

Between 1276 and 1299, archaeologists have recorded a period of "great drought," leading (among other causes) to the eventual end of influence of Puebloan culture and peoples on the Ganado region.

Apaches and Navajos

It is not known when the ancestors of the current Ganado community arrived in the Ganado region, though some suggest after 1400. The historical record left behind shows that the first Navajo people were of hunter-gatherer communities, who evolved into a nexus of agrarian society and pastoral society as the conditions of the area suited. Empowered by evolutionary dry farming techniques acquired via the neighboring Puebloan peoples, the early Ganado community's main crops consisted of beans, corn, and squash.

The early Ganado Navajo, like the modern people today, were speakers of a Na-Dené Southern Athabaskan languages known as Diné bizaad (lit. 'People's language'). Archaeological data suggests these peoples arrived in the present day Four Corners & Colorado Plateau regions in approximately the 15th century. The Navajo language retains cultural and linguistic aspects of this primary dialect and is somewhat mutually intelligible with the Western Apache language.

When the Spanish Conquistadors arrived in the southwestern Arizona–New Mexico region, they encountered these peoples, and subsequently named them Apaches de Nabajó Though distant relatives of the Apache peoples, these Apaches de Nabajó were different in both lineage and pathways to the area, from other Apache bands.

Mythology

(The following appears to be entirely based on the referenced oral history)

Jilhéél & Kin Naazinii (Upstanding House)

A mix of oral legend and archeology suggest that singer, and warrior/ runner Jilhéél came to the Ganado area in the early 18th century. It is believed that he traveled extensively and lived amongst the Puebloan people along the Rio Grande, and migrated with many of them to the refuge of Dinetah at the start of the Spanish invasion and occupation of modern-day Arizona and New Mexico.

In Jilhéél, it is also believed, came many of the cultural, architectural and agricultural influences to the greater Ganado region. Research suggests that Jilhéél contributed to the construction of fortifications to the north and south, notably in the hills east of Wide Ruins 15 mi (24 km) to the southeast of Ganado. Archaeologist David M. Brugge offers that Jilhéél "might have been a local headman of the mid-1770s, possibly a refugee from Awatobi, considering his clan (Táchiiʼnii) and his move to Black Mesa, a refuge of Tobacco Táchiiʼnii people from Awatobi." Oral history research suggests that he inhabited "Wide Ruins, (meaning the Ancestral Puebloan site) and, a few miles north up Wide Ruins Wash, at" the citadel of "Kin Naazinii (Upstanding House)"; if not contributed to its construction – with the help of elder Daalgai – "a Navajo fortified 'pueblito' that archaeologists date at 1720–1805 (NLC, site S-MLC-UP-L; Bannister and others 1966:8; Navajo Nation 1967:263, 271, 285; Gilpin 1996)." Thus, Jilhéél is believed to have traveled between here "north to Canyon de Chelly" regularly.

Oral histories tells of a Jilhéél who carried "gigantic arrows, and had enormous feet. The sight of his footprints struck terror in his enemies. Some say he was a hunter who could run down deer; others say he knew various healing and war ceremonies. Some say he was of the Red Streak into Water (Táchiiʼnii) clan and later moved to Black Mesa." His fame amongst Navajo oral history is well known amongst various historical families. "Some of his attributes may reflect late pre-" Hispanic "iconography (big feet, for example, a common petroglyph motif). These pre-" Hispanic " associations of Jilhéél, together with the idea that Wide Ruins was some kind of 'boundary' place between Hopi and Zuni zones ..., makes one wonder if the north-south travel corridor through Wide Ruins to Canyon de Chelly could have been a late 'everyone's land' as conceptualized by LaBlanc (1999:70, 333) between settlement clusters" much older.

"The north-south corridor that Jilhéél stalked encompasses a string of places with names that came from

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

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