Hot Car Route 66

Kingman stole (literally) the County Seat in 1887, and held an election to keep it after the fact.

Mohave County is the fifth largest county in America (13,470 square miles, 34,886 square km). In 1952, Kingman was the first city in Mohave County to be incorporated (1952), and yet the last county seat in the United States to be incorporated.

Aviators Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart dedicated Arizona’s first commercial airport on Route 66 in Kingman in 1929 (pictured at right is Charles Lindbergh and the spirit of St Louis while in Kingman, courtesy of the Mohave Museum of History & Arts).

In 1962, Dinosaur Caverns was a popular Route 66 Attraction. Geologists let off red smoke bombs inside the caverns, looking for other possible entrances. A couple months later, reports started coming out about red smoke the Grand Canyon filled with red smoke, thus causing the renaming of a Route 66 attraction to the ‘Grand Canyon Caverns’.

Click here to visit our Fun Facts page (in progress) for more interesting facts and tidbits on Kingman!