Lorenzo Hubbell was born in New Mexico and established 
a trading company with C.N. Cotton in Gallup. 
From one trading post at Ganado, Hubbell expanded his 
trading empire by either purchasing or establishing anew 
more than two dozen posts on the Navajo Reservation. 
His sons Roman and Lorenzo, Jr. took over the business upon 
their father’s retirement and subsequent death. 
Lorenzo Hubbell, Jr., bought Thomas Keam’s post in 1902 
and Roman bought the Volz post in "Lower Oraibi (Kykotsmovi) 
a few years later. Thus the Hubbell company became a major 
marketer of Hopi material culture, including ceramics, for 
the following forty years until the brothers sold their Hopi 
posts to Babbitt Brothers and the McGee family.