Hotevilla was first settled by the "hostiles", a group of Hopi residents who were forced out of nearby Oraibi in the 1906 Oraibi Split due to ideological differences over European cultural influences by recently arrived settlers, soldiers and missionaries, influences against which the hostiles were opposed. The US Army seized the children of Hotevilla on Dec 2, 1911 and sent them to government boarding schools after years of protracted resistance. Later attempts to reintegrate displaced residents resulted in another split to the settlement of Bacavi, which later joined with Hotevilla to create a unified settlement. Hotevilla is mentioned by D. H. Lawrence in his Mornings in Mexico travel memoir. The English author visited Hotevilla and Hopi country in 1924.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Hotevilla-Bacavi. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1966Oraibi sheet · 1:62,500
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Hotevilla-Bacavi.
Then & now
Stand where they stood
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Retake this viewBehandeling zaak Hopi indianen uit Hotevilla, Arizona, Ziener Hopi-indianen, Bestanddeelnr 931-1750, 1980
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Hotevilla-Bacavi’s page.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (3), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock) and the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
2012
2004
