Kayenta Off The Beaten Path

6 a.m.-11 p.m. daily.

This exhibit is Free.

There is a wonderful little musemm located inside the Burger King. My hubby ran in here to get the boys some snacks for our next leg of adventure and he was all excited about finding this treasure. I did not get the chance to see it, but he enjoyed it.

The Code Talkers where Native Americans to transmit coded messages goes back as far as World War I, when troops with the 30th Infantry Division used Cherokees as radio men while fighting alongside the British in France. A few Choctaw soldiers performed similar duties in 1918, and members of the Comanche and Meskawi tribes worked as radio operators in World War II.

But the Navajo Code Talkers turned this method of communication into a science. The code contained as many as 400 words. The Japanese were skilled at breaking code, they remained baffled by the complexities of the Navajo tongue and thus were unable to decipher the messages. One estimate at the time indicated that fewer than 30 non-Navajos, none of them Japanese, could understand the language well.

In 1942, there were about 50,000 Navajo tribe members. As of 1945, about 540 Navajos served as Marines. From 375 to 420 of those trained as code talkers; the rest served in other capacities.

Navajo remained potentially valuable as code even after the war. For that reason, the code talkers, whose skill and courage saved both American lives and military engagements, only recently earned recognition from the Government and the public.

Hwy U.S. 160 in Kayenta, about 300 miles northeast of Phoenix. Take Interstate 17 north to Flagstaff, U.S. 89 north to U.S. 160 (the Tuba City turnoff), then U.S. 160 east to Kayenta. The Burger King is on the northern side of the road.