Ella's Frontier Trading Post

In the early 1950s Ella Blackwell Meany and her husband Ray had owned and operated the Hopi House Indian Trading Post 10 miles west of Winslow for a few years. They divorced in 1954 and the next year Ella acquired the Last Frontier Trading Post in Joseph City. She renamed it "Ella's Frontier" which she operated until her passing 1984, long after I-40 had bypassed it and Joseph City in 1969. Before marrying Meany she had attended the Julliard School of Music in New York and kept a piano in the trading post.

Ella's estate auction was on Nov. 10 , 1984 and listed 3 old frieght wagons, wooden Totem poles, a 1956 Ford with only 43,000 miles, an old upright piano, and 50 tons of petrified wood among other items.

Here's where history gets a bit fuzzy, many articles about Ella's Frontier say she recieved it as part of her divorce settlement. But in a 1956 newspaper article/interview in the Phoenix Arizona Republic states that she bought the trading post after the divorce and that it had been standing empty for years before that.

That article also said the place was built by R. B. Porter, a Mormon pioneer. Ella had sign on the building dating it to 1873 and claiming it was the oldest trading post on Route 66. An early postcard tells a similar story. So there seems to be some debate about who built the place and when or if the early date and builder was just marketing talk.

The trading post is located on an abandoned section of Route 66 (Main St.) a bit more than a half mile west of I-40, exit 274, and just west of Howdy Hanks. The back of the trading post is visible from I-40.

GPS: 34.959360, -110.362209

The Ella's Frontier sign was removed from the top of the building in early 2019. Which makes me wonder how much longer the building will be standing.

Rusted, worn and broken metal lettering spells Frontier on the side of the chimney.

Photo(s): 2012