A woolen blanket with a design that commemorates the Red Lake Trading Post, established in the late 1800's by Sam Dittenhoffer and serving primarily Navajo customers living in the area northeast of present-day Tuba City. The Babbitt brothers assumed operation of the Red Lake Trading Post upon his death and it was the first of a large number of trading posts owned by the Babbitt's on the Navajo, Hope, Paiute, and Apache reservations.
To commemorate the Babbitt family's proud and colorful history in the Indian Trading business, Babbitt's Wholesale, Inc. and Pendleton Woolen Mills present unique trade blankets recalling individual Babbitt Brothers trading posts. The Babbitt brothers came to Flagstaff in 1886 to go into the cattle ranching business and soon established themselves as ranch and mercantile store owners. Some of the first manufactured goods to be available to the Native American tribes of the Southwest were machine-made woolen blankets. These blankets gradually replaced the fine hand-woven wearing garments produced by the Pueblo and Navajo Peoples. Since the late 1890's, Pendleton has produced a vast array of woolen blankets designed for the Native American trade.