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Browns Trading Company A Tradition of Quality Sense 1946 In the late 1930’s William O. (Lucky) Brown traveled to Arizona looking for work, which was the start of his extensive mining career with turquoise. Working at the Phelps Dodge Mining Company in Morenci, Arizona, William noticed a blue colored stone that caught his eye. Realizing that this blue rock had a value, Mr. Brown proceeded to mine the turquoise and began trading the rough turquoise for finished jewelry with the Santa Domingo and Zuni tribes. This lead to the opening of the Blue Gem Trading Post, which he and Doc Edger opened in Gallup, N.M. in 1946. Mr. Brown continued mining the Morenci turquoise, but also mined turquoise in locations such as Villa Grove in Colorado, Elfreda in Arizona and several mines in Nevada. The Morenci mine in Arizona, proving to produce high quality turquoise, became his main business, concentrating on mining and marketing it through several family owned Trading Posts in New Mexico and Arizona. William and his wife Bernice opened the second Trading Post, the Covered Wagon at Continental Divide, N.M. in 1949. The extensive trade with the pueblo Indians brought about another move to Albuquerque, N.M. and the opening of the third Trading Post, Browns Turquoise Shop, in 1955.
The increasing interest and trade in Native American Jewelry and arts required another move to Gallup, N.M., where William opened Browns Turquoise Shop One and Two, in 1968. In 1976, having both mining and ranching interest in Arizona, Mr. Brown moved his family to Safford, Arizona, where they opened Browns Turquoise shop. In 1976 Williams two sons, Charles and Wayne took over the mining operations and opened a Lapidary business, in Safford, Arizona. Charles continues today, cutting and marketing this beautiful Morenci turquoise, under the name Brown’s Trading Company. Browns Trading Company today, specializes in cutting beautiful Morenci turquoise, which we sell and trade to the Native American jewelry artists. This connection has enabled us to obtain some of the most beautiful, one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces in the Southwest. Our business travels take us to many of the Pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona where we are always looking for new and exciting items from the artists and reputable traders to offer our customers.
We guarantee that items purchased from our web site will be natural materials and hand crafted, unless otherwise stated. You will be purchasing stones that were mined, hand cut, smoothed, shaped and polished from one source, the Brown family. Most jewelry pieces we offer will contain the stones we have personally mined and cut ourselves. With our first love being turquoise, we will continue to offer as many beautiful stones and rough materials as possible along with both vintage and contemporary Indian jewelry. We THANK you all for the continued patronage and friendship and promise to continue offering the highest quality items! We welcome any questions you might have about Turquoise or any of the items we carry. We also offer volume purchase discounts and dealer discounts on many of the items we carry.
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