Kingman is a city in and the county seat of Mohave County, Arizona, United States. It is named after Lewis Kingman, an engineer for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. The population was 32,693 at the 2020 census.
History
[edit]Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale, a U.S. Navy officer in the service of the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, was ordered by the U.S. War Department to build a federal wagon road across the 35th parallel. His secondary orders were to test the feasibility of the use of camels as pack animals in the Southwestern desert. Beale traveled through the present-day Kingman in 1857 surveying the road and in 1859 to build the road. Beale's Wagon Road became part of U.S. Route 66 and later Interstate 40. Remnants of the wagon road can still be seen in White Cliffs Canyon in Kingman.
Kingman was founded in 1882 before statehood, in Arizona Territory. Situated in the Hualapai Valley between the Cerbat and Hualapai mountain ranges, Kingman had its modest beginnings as a simple railroad siding near Beale Springs. Civil engineer Lewis Kingman supervised the building of the railroad from Winslow to Beale Springs. This spring had been used by Native Americans living in the area for centuries.
The Mohave County seat was originally located in Mohave City from 1864 to 1867. In 1865, the portion of Arizona Territory west of the Colorado River was transferred to Nevada after Nevada's statehood, and became part of Lincoln County, now Clark County, Nevada. The remaining territory of Pah-Ute County became part of Mohave County. Its seat was moved to Hardyville (now within Bullhead City) in 1867. The county seat transferred to the mining town of Cerbat in 1873, then to Mineral Park near Chloride. After some time, the county seat and all instruments were permanently moved to Kingman in 1887.
During World War II, Kingman was the site of a U.S. Army Air Force (USAAF) airfield. The Kingman Army Airfield was founded at the beginning of the war as an aerial gunnery training base. It became one of the USAAF's largest, training some 35,000 soldiers and airmen. The airfield and Kingman played a significant role in this important era of America's history.[citation needed] Following the war, the Kingman Airfield was one of the largest reclamation sites for obsolete military aircraft.
Postwar, Kingman experienced growth as several major employers moved into the vicinity. In 1953, Kingman was used to detain those men accused of practicing polygamy in the Short Creek raid,[6] which was at the time one of the largest arrests in American history.[7] In 1955, Ford Motor Company established a proving ground (now one of the Chrysler Proving Grounds) in nearby Yucca at the former Yucca Army Airfield. Several major new neighborhoods in Kingman were developed to house the skilled workers and professionals employed at the proving ground. Likewise, the development of the Mineral Park mine near adjacent Chloride, and construction of the Mohave Generating Station in nearby Laughlin, Nevada, in 1971 contributed to Kingman's population growth. Also, the location of a General Cable plant at the Kingman Airport Industrial Park provided steady employment.
Kingman explosion
[edit]The Kingman Explosion, also known as the Doxol Disaster or Kingman BLEVE, was a catastrophic boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion (BLEVE) that occurred on July 5, 1973, during a propane transfer from a Doxol railroad car to a storage tank on the Getz rail siding near Andy Devine Avenue/Route 66.
Firefighters Memorial Park in Kingman is dedicated to the 11 firefighters who died in the blaze.
1980s and on
[edit]The 1915-built Mohave County Courthouse and 1909-built Jail were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The downtown and other areas of Kingman were evaluated for historic resources in a 1985 study, the Kingman Multiple Resources Area study. The study identified 63 historic resources in Kingman and led to many of them being listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.[8] The county courthouse and jail, a 1928-built locomotive (the Santa Fe 3759), a World War II gunnery school radio tower, and about 50 various houses and other buildings in Kingman are listed on the National Register, comprising the majority of National Register listings in Mohave County.
Geography
[edit]Kingman is in central Mohave County, along Interstate 40 and U.S. Route 93. The city is served by three exits on I-40, which leads east 147 miles (237 km) to Flagstaff and southwest 62 miles (100 km) to Needles, California. US-93 leads northwest 107 miles (172 km) to Las Vegas and southeast 130 miles (210 km) to Wickenburg, 54 miles (87 km) from Phoenix. US 93 is planned to be replaced by Interstate 11 once built to interstate highway standards. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city of Kingman has a total area of 37.5 square miles (97 km2), all land.[3]
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