West by Southwest – August 2011

MIKE KIRK – ENTREPRENEUR AND INDIAN PROMOTER

By Ernie Bulow

Luckily for Gallup and the Inter-Tribal Ceremonial, Mike Kirk was a passionate performer.  Most everyone agrees that he put a lot more energy into his various Indian shows than he ever did his Manuelito trading post.  Luckily for him, his wife Caroline Olson was very good at the trading business and she kept the post going while Mike flitted around the country.

Mike Kirk in the Arena

Mike bought the Manuelito place from the estate of a man named Aldridge.  He must have been an untidy fellow because the local Navajos called his store Kin t’o bahiie – Dirty House.  Mike was a good enough businessman to build up a thriving wholesale business, but family members believed he did it just to have an excuse to travel.

Early on, Mike Kirk, sporting his ten-gallon Stetson and his pinto pony, went around the country with groups of Navajo and Zuni racers and dancers, putting on educational shows in towns all over America.  He got to know a lot about the Navajos.

When the Kiwanis Club met to discuss the idea of Ceremonial in 1922 it was Mike that sold the idea.  It was reported later that he gave the businessmen assembled an excellent talk on the significance and value of Navajo ceremonial observance, including the related mythology.

Tom Kirk tells an interesting story about Uncle Mike.  Tom asked his father John why Mike spoke better Navajo than he did.  His answer:  “Most charities are deserving, but if you gave to every one you’d need charity yourself.”  By pretending to not understand the Navajo language very well John saved himself a lot of money.  The Navajos didn’t bother to tell him their problems.

John added, “Mike listens to the troubles of every Indian and before he knows it he’s reaching into his pocket to help them.”   That statement tells a lot about Mike Kirk.

Plenty of folks have claimed credit for creating Gallup’s Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial.  Obviously it was a joint effort of a number of people.  At the Kiwanis Club meeting March 22, 1922, Kirk brought up the idea of setting aside a day each year to pay tribute to the Indians.  A man named Ray Aldrich backed him up.  Aldrich helped find and convince Indian dance groups to take part.

Mike Kirk and Grey Eyes, early 1920s

The origin of Indians performing social dances in public is a tradition lost in history.  It is known that when the fake “tertio-millenial” celebration took part in Santa Fe in 1883, a number of Indian tribes presented dances, gambling games and various kinds of races.

Buffalo Bill, Pawnee Bill, the Miller’s 101 ranch and dozens of other “Wild West Shows” came to popularity following the Custer massacre, in spite of continuing strife between Anglos and Natives.  Gallup had been holding giant gatherings to celebrate the Fourth of July for many years.  Parades, games, races and baseball matches were regularly featured.

S. F. Stacher had already been holding similar gatherings at Crownpoint where he was the Indian agent.  Stacher was a prime mover in developing the new Gallup holiday.  Rodeos and fairs were already a staple entertainment all over the West.

Some people give the credit for Ceremonial to the Santa Fe Railroad, which was putting a lot of energy and money into promoting the Indian Southwest.  With the collaboration of the Fred Harvey Company, who opened the El Navajo Hotel in Gallup in 1923, the railroad offered excellent hotels and restaurants all through the area, as well as their guided “Indian Tours” to various Pueblos.

The tangible connection between the Santa Fe Railroad and Ceremonial was Mike Kirk.  He had provided a popular Indian dance group for the Santa Fe’s hotel at the Grand Canyon.  The Indians had been a big hit with the tourists.  The railroad provided monetary support for the Ceremonial.

Mike Kirk painted up two Cadillacs filled with Indians to publicize Ceremonial.

Another theory credits the local McKinley County Fair, which added Indian dances and an exhibition of Indian arts and crafts to its celebration in 1921.  Observers said the Indians “stole the show.”  Local businessmen figured they might as well take advantage of the interest in Native Americans.

Another name that pops up is that of land developer I. H. “Ike” Ford, who has a canyon named for him.  He later claimed the whole affair was his idea, with the support of Roman Hubbell, and that he had single-handedly promoted and pulled off the first Ceremonial.  He held a huge amount of Gallup real estate at the time, south of the El Rancho.

Nobody but Ford himself seems to give him any credit for the founding of Gallup’s most famous event.  He is pretty well forgotten in the history of the town.

It was certainly Kirk who was the prime mover for the event and he and some of his roustabout buddies made it happen.  At first the local businessmen were lukewarm to the idea.  It was Kirk, Joe Tanner (known as “Bear Man”) and Howard Wilson who were the hands and feet on the ground, so to speak.  It has been suggested that these men just liked the idea of having a good time.  They were known for a bit of drinking and hi-jinks.

Some of Mike Kirk's Inidans in Los Angeles, 1925

Mike Kirk, Evon Vogt, and Homer Powers endured long hours of tribal wrangling to induce various Indian tribes to attend and take part in the new event.  Kirk, of all of the men involved, was the most fanatical and obsessed.  He left his business to his wife and threw all of his energy into the new project.

When Kirk moved his business into Gallup he used his store windows to promote Ceremonial.  Joe Davis, a former employee of the Ilfeld company, took over most of the business chores leaving Mike to promote the event.  For years he put most of his energy into expanding Ceremonial.

In 1925 he took a large and varied group of Indians – sixty individuals representing seventeen tribes – to Los Angeles, where they performed for the Shriners Convention.  They were housed in the Indian Village at Exposition Park and put on their show in the recently built Coliseum.  It was a tremendous advertising boost for Ceremonial.

On the Fourth of July, 1925, J. B. Tanner had brought in a small herd of buffalo.  The Ceremonial board commandeered them and they became a central part of the August show.  They staged a buffalo stampede each day (a staple of the earlier Wild West shows) and one animal was killed each day to feed the Indians.  In later years buffalo riding was a regular event.

In 1926, Mike Kirk lost his cool.  After four years of operating in the red Kirk was disgusted by what he considered the failure of the Ceremonial and decided to try a similar show in Albuquerque, which caused a lot of bad feeling in Gallup. He called the affair the “First American.” After only a couple of years the Albuquerque event was also a failure as a moneymaker and Kirk gave it up.  He never again supported the Ceremonial he had done so much to create and support.

Mike was the first director of Flagstaff’s All-Indian Pow-Wow.  And during WWII he took his Indians on tour around America to sell war bonds. Phoenix, Arizona started its own Ceremonial in 1940, but the War interrupted it and it was never revived.

One of Mike Kirk’s innovations at the Manuelito post was creating a museum to attract customers.  One of his popular attractions was the mummy of a child, procured for him by trader Sam Day.  They built a glass-topped coffin to display the desiccated tyke.  It is strange that the Anasazi mummy didn’t drive away Navajo customers.  Some say the body was actually that of a very small woman.

Eventually he had an impressive assortment of artifacts, including some Spanish armor, which was taken over by John Wall when he bought the post.  The collection went to the trading post at Continental Divide years later.

It is too bad that Mike Kirk parted ways with the Gallup establishment.  He was obviously a man of many parts.  A final story concerns Will Rodgers, who attended Ceremonial at one time.  He told brother John he had seen a sign on Mike’s trading post that read, “Mike Kirk, Honest Indian Trader.”  The next time he passed the sign read, “Mike Kirk, Product of 49 Tribes.”  The Navajo sign painter left off the “s” after Product.  Rodgers said this was a man he had to meet.

The Kirk Brother store and warehouse on the north side was destroyed to make room for Interstate 40.

Michael Edward Kirk was seriously injured in a car wreck.  He died in an Albuquerque hospital on May 12, 1942.  By the late seventies there were no longer any Kirks in the Indian Trading business.