Navajo Code Talkers Museum plan splits over Farmington site
Navajo Times | Krista Allen
A portrait of the first 29 Navajo Code Talkers is displayed. The first 29 were organized into the 382nd Platoon. This was the first all-Native, all-Navajo platoon in the history of the U.S. Marine Corps. Another 370 Navajo men would join the ranks of the code talkers during the Pacific campaign of World War II.
By Donovan Quintero
Special to the Times
WINDOW ROCK – A Navajo Code Talkers Museum could be built in Farmington instead of Tse Bonito, the site where Navajo Code Talkers like Keith Little and Samuel Sandoval envisioned it would become the home of their legacy.
Both Little and Sandoval have since passed on, along with all but two of their brothers in arms.
The long-stalled effort to build a museum honoring Diné Marines who used the Navajo language to help the United States win key battles in the Pacific campaign during World War II has entered a new and politically fraught phase. Board members are weighing a time-sensitive offer to build at Navajo Preparatory School in Farmington while families and organizers continue pressing for the original “world-class” museum envisioned for the land donated near Tse Bonito.
For Malula Sandoval, the widow of the late Navajo Code Talker Samuel Sandoval, the dispute is tied to a promise her husband carried until his death.
“This has been in the works for many, many years, maybe like 16 years,” she said. “The code talkers were very happy that they were gonna get this museum going. And look, here we are, we’re still talking about it.”
To read the full article, please see the Feb. 19, 2026, edition of the Navajo Times.
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