The AmericaJR Web Team recently visited The Navajo Bridge and The World War II Navajo Code Talkers Exhibit in Kayenta, Ariz. The Navajo Bridge crosses the Colorado River’s Marble Canyon near Lee’s Ferry in the U.S. state of Arizona carrying U.S. Route 89A. The bridge carries northbound travelers to southern Utah and to the Arizona Strip, which includes the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. The Code Talkers Exhibit is located inside a Burger King restaurant. In the heart of the Navajo reservation, you can handle a Whopper and look at photos and articles that explain how 400 locals fluent in Navajo — an indecipherable language without a written alphabet — volunteered for a W.W.II secret tactical “code talkers” unit to evade Nazi and Jap code-crackers.
The Navajo Steel Arch Highway Bridge
A view of the Marble Canyon and the Colorado River from Navajo Bridge.
This erection toggle screw was used in the construction of the historic Navajo Bridge
The bridge is 834 feet (254 m) in length
AmericaJR’s Jason Rzucidlo stands next to the sign
A view of the Colorado River below
The bridge is 470 feet (140 m) above the river
AmericaJR’s Gloria and Jerome Rzucidlo
AmericaJR’s Jason Rzucidlo
The bridge is 44 feet (13 m) wide
The new bridge was completed on October 14, 1994
Navajo Nation sign
Vendors selling arts and crafts
Moenkopi Legacy Inn hotel
The hotel’s architecture reflects the character of the Hopi villages
Monument Valley is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching 1,000 ft above the valley floor.
Director John Ford used the location for a number of his best-known films
Jason welcomes you to Monument Valley
Into the late 1930’s, few Navajos around the Kayenta area had wagons.
The construction of bridges and roads started to increase the demand for wagons.
AmericaJR’s Gloria Rzucidlo at the Palisaded Hogan
“Hogan” is the word for a Navajo round home.
Now, large hogans may have beds, tables, always a stove, possibly a few chairs and maybe a window.
Pots and pans in the kitchen area
The structure is built with pillars of logs or rocks, cribbed logs or whatever was available.
A stove in the middle to provide warmth.
The Navajo Shadehouse Museum
The Navajo Code Talkers exhibit inside Burger King
Code Talkers were Marines who developed a code of some 200 characters and a vocabulary of 411 terms that could be memorized and used lightning fast.
They were trained in sending and receiving messages from air to ground, ship to shore, tank to command post.
