Crystal, NM

Crystal is an unincorporated community and census-designated place on the Navajo Nation in San Juan and McKinley counties in New Mexico, United States. The 2020 census counted 302 residents. Crystal is located along the base of the Chuska Mountains, at the western end of Narbona Pass. The McKinley County portion of Crystal is part of the Gallup Micropolitan Statistical Area, while the San Juan County portion is part of the Farmington Metropolitan Statistical Area. The Bureau of Indian Education operates Crystal Boarding School, a K-6 boarding school. Crystal opened in 1935 as part of an effort to replace off-reservation Indian boarding schools with on-reservation boarding schools, as a part of the New Deal project.

The through line in Crystal is the way its history and present-day settings remain visible on the same map. Crystal makes the most sense through those concrete details, with its history still visible in the settings people use today. A post office operated at Crystal from 1903 to 1941. The first known trader in the Washington Pass area was Romulo Martinez, a Spanish-American from Fort Defiance, in 1873. The names of other traders are recorded for the following years, but they seem all to have been temporary, trading from tents in the summer season.