Throughout the year visitors to the museum maintained by the Navajo County Historical Society are invited to tour more than three dozen different exhibit areas offered in the historic Navajo County Courthouse in Holbrook. In 2015, a total of 18,692 visitors were served at the courthouse visitor’s center, providing information on local services, must see attractions, including Petrified Forest National Park, maps and travel information, restroom facilities and spending time browsing through the museum. Since 2010 a total of 100,834 visitors have stopped at the historic courthouse. Each exhibit area features objects that have been donated by people who worked or lived in the area, and it is their stories that are told as they contributed to the community’s way of life, the schools, businesses and organizations, as well as leisure time before computers, Xboxes and iPhones. Volunteers and staff members recently put together a history of Holbrook’s movie theaters, and square dancing, which was popular in the 1940s-60s is featured in a new display. Plans are in the works to create more exhibits featuring the interests of earlier generations. The museum officially opened its doors in 1983 with just three rooms of displays and the old jail. Today the museum has expanded to every room in the 10,000-square foot historic courthouse, plus the annex hallway and auditorium. Subjects of one major exhibit are the Navajo County Sheriff’s Hashknife Posse, and the search and rescue organization’s annual Pony Express Ride made each year at the end of January to carry official U.S. Mail by horseback to Scottsdale. The organization’s collections for which the historical society serves as caretaker include a set of the early bronze ride coins in the annex hallway which commemorate each ride, and to whom or what each ride was dedicated. Samples of the special Pony Express cachet each envelope is stamped with can be seen in the sheriff’s office. A Hashknife leather shirt that belonged to Roy Downing is displayed in this exhibit, next to the leather briefcase of Sheriff L. Ben Pearson, who served in the mid-1950s and was a good friend of Downing. After area ranchers and other men were called out during a November snow storm to locate some stranded hunters, the sheriff and Downing got to talking about the need for a readily available search and rescue organization. The two men invited others to an organizational meeting and in 1955, the Navajo County Sheriff’s Hashknife Posse was established. In the winter of 1958 members of the posse decided to personally deliver an invitation to then Governor Fannin to attend the Hashknife’s Junior Jamboree in the summer. That it was winter and they were in the middle of a snow storm over the Mogollon Rim did not deter posse members from making that first ride. And it wasn’t over the main highways like today, but across open country, where cattle gates had to be opened and closed, and snowdrifts that just about swallowed the horse and rider had to be navigated. Even more of a challenge was that the approximately 200-mile ride was made without any overnight stops. This year the Hashknife Posse is observing its 60th year as a search and rescue organization and its 58th pony express ride. This is one aspect of history that has contributed to the legacies of Holbrook’s and Navajo County, which the museum proudly shares with visitors. As a visiting exhibitor, the Hashknife Posse has a large display in one room of the museum featuring a full-sized model horse and various memorabilia. Added to the posse’s objects are other items that the museum has in its care. Joy Nevin, an early patron and volunteer at the museum, donated a once white leather Hashknife shirt that belonged to Ray Tankersly. A light tan Stetson once worn by Rex Graham and a square table with legs made out of branches belonged to the Lee family, and were donated by Lon Lee. There are four matching chairs in the archive storage. In addition to the mannequins and their boots that are part of the museum’s collection is the official tan canvas mailbag with leather corners and straps donated by William Serio, who worked for the U.S. Post Office. At the visitors desk, information on the history of the Hashknife Posse, as well as how to mail a Pony Express letter is distributed. Visitors, especially grandparents or families with youngsters, are encouraged to send letters on the annual ride. A special Pony Express mail canister is in the lobby to collect the letters. The museum also features a number of objects from the original Hashknife cowboys of the late 1800s, including a chuck wagon used by the Hashknife and Hashknife branding irons. The Aztec Land and Cattle Co. ran more than 50,000 head of cattle to graze along the right-of-way of the railroad that crossed Northern Arizona. The cowboys who tended the cattle were called the Hashknife outfit, many of whom left Texas to work the cattle. Some of these boys had some law enforcement troubles and were looking for a new environment. The brand used on the cattle was named the Hashknife, which resembles a type of knife commonly used by the chuck wagon cooks. The museum has such a knife on display that was donated by Marlin Gillespie. By 1904 the eastern market for beef had dropped, and the Aztec Land and Cattle Co. pulled its cattle out of Arizona to downsize its operation. Some of the Hashknife cowboys were a bit rough around the edges and were known to stir up the town when they had time off of the range, and some were even principals in the Pleasant Valley War, but this was not true of every man in the outfit. A number of the cowboys stayed on in the area when the cattle were moved out, and they were upright citizens involved in community life, and successful ranchers and businessmen. The Babbitt family obtained the Hashknife brand and some holdings of the Aztec Land and Cattle Co. when the outfit closed its operations in northern Arizona. The Navajo County Sheriff’s Hashknife Posse obtained permission from the Babbitt Family to use the Hashknife brand as its logo. Plans are in the works to highlight the original Hashknife outfit in a special exhibit as space allows. Their story involves a great number of the area’s early families and should be shared with visitors. The public is invited to visit the museum and view the Hashknife Pony Express objects, as well as prepare a letter to be carried by horseback for the 58th Navajo County Sheriff’s Posse Pony Express Ride. Special postal notecards for the pony express ride are available for $1 each at the museum’s gift shop, as are the 1981 posse commemorative coins that also note Holbrook’s centennial year. The gift shop also offers books that might be of interest, including The Hashknife Around Holbrook, which features the original Hashknife outfit.