Prescott, AZ - Todd Calhoon could be mistaken for an Arizona cowboy with his lanky 6-foot frame and lean 175 pounds. Instead, he was born in Miami after his father, originally from Oklahoma, was stationed there during World War II to attend officer candidate school. After the war ended, the family moved to Miami Beach, where Todd was born in 1952.

By 1964 the Calhoons had moved west to settle in Prescott, Ariz., the old territorial capital of the Sunshine State. In 1970, Todd's father, Glen, and his mother, Barbara, a nurse from Indiana who had met his father in the Marianna Islands during World War II, decided to purchase an antique business. A year later they began adding American Indian items, which is all the Attic-Hogan now trades and sells. And Todd is the proprietor.

"If we had stayed in antiques, we'd be long gone," Calhoon says now with a soft chuckle.

While he was in high school and later attending Yavapi College, he worked summers learning jewelry repair, which has served him well now that he deals with Indian pieces. His father also required that he do extensive reading, including The Wall Street Journal every day, which, he says, completed his formal education.

When Todd decided he needed a break from school, his father suggested he join the family business. He did, and it became his full-time career in 1972.

Calhoon became interested in traditional American Indian items, including jewelry and crafts such as Kachina dolls.

"Kachinas are significant to the Hopi people," he said, "particularly in religious ceremonies."

He does not carry Kachina dolls made by the Navajos since they were not a tradition of that culture and are only now being manufactured for the tourist trade.

"We have a broad spectrum of the Hopi Kachina dolls in the old style on that west wall," he said, nodding to a display. "They are the rejuvenation of the earliest types with simple details."

Calhoon also became fascinated with other crafts, such as sand-painting and rug-making. He attended trade shows, collected books and now has an astonishing collection of Arizona Highway magazines that contain extensive information about Indian arts and crafts.

"People send Arizona Highway magazines to me from all over the country," he said.

He sells and gives some of the many duplicates away. He also keeps files on Indian family members and those who have visited his shop, plus people with whom he has become acquainted on their reservations.

In 1980 Calhoon married Pamela Jean Hart, who came to his shop looking for silver tips for a bola tie for her father. On their first date they went out to cut a Christmas tree.

"I was born in Iowa," Pam says, "but I grew up in the D.C, area. My dad, an electrical engineer, was working for the National Electrical Contractors Association. I became a clinical registered dietitian and later took a job with the Veterans Hospital in New Orleans. Eventually I was transferred to their facility here in Prescott."

Todd and Pam have two boys, Brett, 24, and Devin, 19. They all work in the Attic-Hogan occasionally.

Pam, like Todd, comes from Irish ancestry, though he claims his is Celtic and more pure. She disputes this with a chuckle. Her outgoing personality bubbles with laughter. She says she enjoyed their early trips to the reservations before the Indians started bringing their work to the store.

Todd talks about some of the merchandise, including the large cylindrical vessels that were used for storing seeds. The Attic-Hogan also offers some Santa Clara black pots and wedding vases, new-style Navajo pottery, Navajo rugs and a selection of Navajo, Zuni, Hopi and Santo Domingo jewelry. The shop also features a superb Indian pottery collection, outstanding matted and framed sand paintings, a wide choice of Indian baskets, fetishes, carvings and sculptures. All merchandise is handmade by American Indians.

"We always give the artists full credit, including the names of their tribes and the individuals. We also take photographs and keep extensive files," Todd said.

He remembers an appointment he made with one man to look at his rugs, but the man had car trouble and got there very late.

"At 11:30 p.m. he called, and I came down and under the security lights outside I bought two Navajo rugs."

Todd also trades with the Foutz family of Ship Rock, N.M., and he showed off a black-and-white woven rug by Mary Begay from Bitterspring, Ariz.

My favorite was a colorful Navajo rug titled "Storm Pattern," and Todd was able to show me a chapter from a book about the design's history. It was created in the Red Lake Trading Post at Tonalea on the Hopi Reservation in Arizona, which was established 1881. The pattern has a basic design of a rectangular center with radiating lines to the four corners, where additional squares are set. Secondary elements include zigzags, diamonds, arrows and stepped terraces serving as fillers along the borders.

In 2001 Todd celebrated the 30th anniversary of his store with a remodel. He had discovered there was no rebar supporting the building, so he added that and put stucco over the bricks. He placed thick glass bricks in the wall to add light and created a new sign identifying the Attic-Hogan for outside.

In addition, Todd celebrated this anniversary with a giveaway of money and gifts. He selected three local charities and gave them 10 percent of his store's gross sales from between September and December.

Six years later the Attic-Hogan is still going strong. Todd attributes his success to the fact that he has carefully focused his business on a specific market. But anyone who visits the store would add that a great deal of this success is due to the friendly nature and ready smiles of its owners.

The Attic-Hogan is located at 749 Miller Valley Road, Prescott, AZ, 86301; phone 928-445-6684. The hours are Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (they take Tuesdays and Thursdays off), Saturdays: noon to 4 p.m. or by appointment.

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