Build the ultimate southwestern getaway, just off the reservation!

Welcome to Sanders! A small town just off of the old Route 66, it’s on the cusp of neighboring St. Johns. Located in Apache County, the area has the most land designated as Indian reservation of any county in the United States (68.34% of its area). As part of Apache Park Estates, you’ll enjoy just over an acre of beautiful southwestern landscape to set up camp and call your own.

Where the area got its name can be debated, depending on who you ask. It either comes from C.W. Sanders, a railroad office engineer, or Art Saunders, who had a trading post nearby. Back in the day, the local railroad station was named Cheto to avoid confusion with another station already named Sanders. You can visit the two historic bridges in town, both listed in the National Register of Historic Places: The Historic Querino Canyon Bridge and the 1923 bridge on old Route 66.

Sanders is surrounded by the Nahata Dziil and (north of the town) Houck chapters of the Navajo Nation. The latter is made up of local Navajos of the area and relocated Navajo refugees from the Navajo/Hopi land dispute. The area was mostly ranch land until the U.S. government bought it and added it to the Navajo Nation in 1981.

You won’t be far from Four Corners Monument, which is the only place where four states meet – Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. The Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site is on Highway 191, north of Chambers, with an exhibit center in Ganado, Arizona. It is considered a meeting ground of two cultures between the Navajo and the settlers who came to the area to trade.

You’ve got no restrictions on what kind of residence to build and no time limit to build it. You’ll need to outfit your remote piece of southwestern paradise with a well, water haul and holding tank and power by solar, wind or generator. The vegetation of the surrounding region includes juniper, pinón pine and a variety of native plants such as prickly pear cactus and sagebrush. You can see pronghorn, deer, cougar, coyote, elk, turkey and quail right outside your back door. Talk about the ultimate way to literally get away from it all, right?

• Visit the Hubbell Trading Post (National Historic Site) 65 miles away
• Mark your calendar for the Navajo County Fair & Rodeo in September, 74 miles away
• Navajo Nation Museum & Navajo Nation Zoological Park, 64 miles away
• Try your luck at the Casinos on the Navajo Nation
• Hike Blue Mesa Trail in the Petrified National Forest
• Iconic 4 corners monument – 185 miles away
• Petrified Forest National Park 83 miles
• Apache Sitgreaves National Forest 122 miles
• Tonto National Forest 204 miles
• Coconino National Forest 178 miles
• Albuquerque 200 miles
• Phoenix 260 miles 
• Tucson 279 miles
• Las Vegas 416 miles 
• Fly in and Fly out of Albuquerque Airport
• Shop the Walmart Supercenter in Gallup, NM 60 miles away