Billy Malone, Trader to the Navajo, “Walks On”
A Founding Father of Friends of Hubbell and
Fresh out of the U.S. Army and unable to find employment, he began his colorful career in the early 1960s working at the trading post in Lupton, Arizona. While working at Lupton, Billy met and married Minnie Goodluck, with whom they would spend more that 60 years together. After working in Lupton about a year, he ventured to Keams Canyon, Arizona, on the Hopi Reservation, and began working under the tutelage of Cliff McGee, a well-known and respected operator of trading posts on the Hopi and Navajo Reservations. Billy caught the “bug” of becoming a full-time Indian Trader.
He was a ‘natural’ for the job and soon was moved to become assistant manager at the Piñon, Arizona, Trading Post on the Navajo Nation. Billy and Minnie spent 19 years at Piñon, started their family, and became an essential part of the community. While at the Piñon trading post, Billy, who became fluent in the Navajo language, became the trusted trader and partner to the surrounding Navajo community; making their phone calls, writing letters, officiating at funerals, settling disputes, and everything else that goes along the life of a trader. He also served as banker – cashing checks, making loans till payday, trading for store goods and supplies on credit, buying and selling livestock and wool, and trading for rugs, jewelry, saddles, and anything else the Diné brought in for trade, cash or collateral. Back in those days, the Navajo considered jewelry as a valuable trade commodity and Billy was not prone to “killing” (selling) their pawned items if someone was behind on payments. He realized it was very often family heirlooms and would work with the borrowers for as long as it took. For her part, Minnie, in addition to raising their family, became an accomplished weaver and silversmith, and later became the first Navajo Postmaster at Piñon, Arizona – a first for the Navajo Nation. 
In 1981, Billy and Minnie moved from Piñon to Ganado as Billy was offered the position he could not refuse – Trader for the Hubbell Trading Post. The Hubbell family had deeded the trading post to the National Park Service with the agreement that it was to be managed and continue to operate as a real trading post to preserve the historic role it served in a quickly vanishing era. Billy and Minnie thrived as Billy maintained the ways of the old traders at the “crown jewel” of Navajo trading posts. He served as the trader at Hubbell for 24 years. But employee jealousy, coupled with ‘Government corporate bean-counters,’ who were supported by inexperienced and over-zealous NPS inspectors, brought the old-school running of Hubbell to an end. As a result, Billy’s own lifetime collection of Native arts and crafts was illegally confiscated in an early morning raid on his home. It was a two-and-a-half-year struggle before he was fully exonerated by the Federal courts and “most” of his belongings returned. Some rugs, jewelry and cash somehow never were found nor returned. (To get a real look into this travesty, read “The Case of the Indian Trader: Billy Malone and the National Park Service Investigation at the Hubbell Trading Post,” by Paul Berkowitz.
After leaving Hubbell, Billy also worked at the Crystal Forest Museum and Gift Shop at the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona as well as Shush Yazh Trading in Gallup. He then opened his own store, Bill Malone Trading in 2009, one of the most respected Native American arts and crafts establishments in Gallup and the Southwest. The shop is still operated by his family in Gallup.
Billy’s wife and life partner for more than 60 years, Minnie, passed away in June of 2024. Bill is survived by his five children, 23 grandchildren and 29 great-grandchildren.
Back in the early 1990s, Billy was a driving force behind the establishment of our Friends of Hubbell organization and its mission. A central figure in our organization for more than three decades, he continued to provide his wealth of knowledge and expertise on Southwestern Native American culture, arts and crafts, and did so up to the week he passed. Perhaps long-time Friends of Hubbell board member Jay Mahoney summed up Billy’s life genuinely; “A great man has left us to join his beloved Minnie. Kindness was his trademark! He will not be forgotten by all who knew him. He touched so many lives in so many ways. His life mattered, for he left this world a better place than he was born into.”
Editor’s Note: In recognition of Billy’s and Minnie’s lifetime of contributions to the Native American community and to our Friends of Hubbell organization, we are naming, in perpetuity, The Billy and Minnie Malone Scholarship in their honor.
