Navajo Indians have been making practical pottery for years. When metal utensils became available to the Navajo through the trading posts, pottery production declined. Then Bill Beaver came along back in the 1930's. Bill worked at the Shonto Trading Post, and he encouraged Navajo potters to make pottery for the tourists, like the potters from the various pueblos were doing. Today families from the Shonto-Cow Springs area of the Navajo reservation are some of the best known makers of traditional Navajo brownware and folk art pottery. Bill Beaver, who now owns the Sacred Mountain Trading Post, is still encouraging the potters.