A guest post by Fred Coldwell

Our favorite expert on Pendleton park blankets, Fred Coldwell, is a private collector of National Park blankets, and has spent time in the Pendleton archives and given talks at Pendleton HQ. He has also attended several store grand openings, where he shares his deep knowledge and his vintage travel trailer. Here, he takes a deep dive on an unusual design for the Pendleton National Park series. — Editor

The Santa Fe Design

Pendleton’s first two national park blankets, the 1916 Glacier Park and the 1923 Yellowstone Park, shared a historic trade blanket design of four bands of color on each end against a solid color body. That design evolved slightly in 1926 when the Zion Park blanket was introduced with three smaller tri-color bands at each end.

Finally, national park blanket design broke loose in 1928 when Pendleton went zigzaggy on its new Santa Fe blanket, its only true national park blanket named for something other than a national park: the Santa Fe Trail.

The new Santa Fe came only in one size, a single measuring 66 x 80 inches as indicated by its four points, and had a virgin wool weft on a cotton wrap. Its top and bottom ends were felt bound. It had three bold zigzags across its face. The center zigzag was unadorned, but the top and bottom ones were bound by three thin stripes of brown, red or terra cotta, and straw above and below to add weight and better anchor those zigzag bands to each end.

Here are the terra cotta and white versions:

The other body colors were straw, drab, white, and red. A drab version can be seen on page 122 in Barry Friedman’s magnificent 2002 book Chasing Rainbows. Four brown points are sewn in the lower right hand corner of the center field on all these Santa Fe blankets. Many other 1920s national park Pendletons have their points sewn in the lower left hand corner of the center field. The reason, if any, for these different point locations has not yet been discovered.

Why a Zigzag?

The zigzag design was described as a fancy jacquard border in Pendleton’s 1928 Wholesale Price List. The zigzags could represent mountains with trees in their valleys, meandering rivers with trees along their banks, or a rough and rustic trail that wildly veers back and forth towards its destination. The thin stripes suggest some containment and order along parts of the trail while the body represents the vast prairie through which the trail passes. Zigzags are not purely a figment of the designer’s geographic imagination. They appear naturally in the landscape, as seen in this photo taken along Highway 163 on the Navajo Nation in southern Utah.

Here are three Santa Fe blankets in straw, white and terra cotta, respectively, for comparison’s sake. On the straw blanket, the green zigzags and trees stand out strongly from the straw background in the center band but get lost in the red background in the lower and upper bands, not the best color contrast. On this blanket the middle 1-inch stripe is terra cotta.

On the white blanket, the pink zigzags and trees contrast nicely against the white background in all three bands. On the terra cotta blanket, the brown zigzags and trees contrast strongly with the terra cotta center field as well as the straw background in the lower and upper bands. The middle 1-inch stripe on both blankets is red, while the innermost stripes on the terra cotta lower and upper bands are a nearly invisible straw, visually widening the background for the zigzags in those two bands. The terra cotta Santa Fe is my favorite because its colors best capture the southwestern ambiance and coloration of its namesake, the historic Santa Fe Trail.

The Last Santa Fe

The Santa Fe was available only in 1928; it had disappeared from Pendleton’s catalogs by 1929. It remained unavailable for nearly eight decades until 2005, when it reappeared as Pendleton’s new Heritage Collection blanket for that year. The design was preserved but the colorway changed to a dark brown.

The red zigzags are clearly visible against the brown and straw backgrounds. Both end zigzags were bound again by three narrow stripes of brown, green, and red, keeping true to the original design. Points were eliminated but, nevertheless, the Santa Fe reemerged in this brown colorway with its bold historic design strong and still stunning.

This 2005 Santa Fe stayed in production longer than its ancestor, lasting for at least three years until it disappeared from Pendleton catalogs in late 2007. Some may have rested on store shelves for a while longer before moving on to discriminating customers with an eye for a simple yet striking design. They still pop up for sale from time to time, so if you ever get the opportunity, you might consider a ride along the wild and woolly Santa Fe Trail.

See previous posts here: Fred Coldwell