History
Hosta Butte in northwestern New Mexico, near Crownpoint and southwest of Chaco Culture National Historical Park, is an ancestral site within the Dinétah, regarded alongside Gobernador Knob and Huérfano Mountain as part of the birthplace of early Navajo culture. Rising to 8,622 feet, it has long figured in the cosmography of Native peoples, and small shrines are found on the mountain. In 1877, photographer William Henry Jackson named it for Francisco Hosta, who guided him to Ancestral Puebloan ruins in Chaco Canyon. The surrounding land later saw uranium mining across about 3,020 acres in the Grants Uranium Belt, linking the butte to both deep cultural tradition and modern resource use.
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New Mexico · United States