Holbrook, Arizona

The Holbrook area was inhabited first by the Ancestral Puebloans, then Puebloans, then the Navajo and Apache. In 1540 Coronado searched for the Seven Cities of Cibola and camped some 60 miles east of Holbrook. Coronado sent an expedition west to find the Colorado River, and they crossed the Little Colorado some twenty-five miles east of Holbrook and found a wonderland of colors they named "El Desierto Pintada" - The Painted Desert. The expedition was then led by the Hopis to the Grand Canyon.