Canyon de Chelly sandstone spires, Arizona, circa 1940

About this postcard

The view looks across a shallow stream toward the red sandstone monoliths and sheer canyon walls of Canyon de Chelly in northeastern Arizona, with cottonwood trees and brush along the banks. The card's own caption names the site simply "Canyon de Chelly, Arizona." The canyon is a National Monument encompassing roughly 84,000 acres on the Navajo Nation, long inhabited by Navajo and earlier Ancestral Puebloan peoples, whose cliff dwellings and pictographs remain in the canyon walls. The tall free-standing spires shown are characteristic of the de Chelly and Spider Rock formations carved by the seasonal Chinle Wash.