Mohave County

* МОНAVE *

MOHAVE County is the second largest county in Arizona, having an area of 13,390 square miles or 8,569,600 acres. It is bounded on the north by Utah, on the west by Nevada and California, on the east by Coconino and Yavapai counties and on the south by Yuma County. One of Arizona's four original counties, it was named after the Mohave Indians. “Mohave,” according to one authority, “is an Indian word meaning 'three mountains' from their proximity to the 'Needles.' ” The county seat and largest city in Mohave County is Kingman, which despite its population of 3,000 has the distinction of being the largest unincorporated town and the only unincorporated county seat in the United States. Kingman came into being in 1883 as a railway station for the Atlantic and Pacific Railway, a branch of the Santa Fe pushing its way west through north-western Arizona. Today it is an important Santa Fe travel center and a highway travel metropolis at the junction of U.S. 66 and U.S. 93, the latter the connecting link between Arizona and Boulder Dam, 70 miles from Kingman. When you consider that over 1,000,000 people traveled U.S. 66 last year and that between October 1, 1939, and September 30, 1940, a total of 655,910 people in 225,867 vehicles traveled U.S. 93, you get a rough idea of Kingman's importance in the travel sun.

Furthermore Kingman is the center of a vast cattle and sheep raising area, the center of a vast mining district. In every respect the city is a modern, enterprising American city and a cíty whose possibilities and potentialities are such as to defy prediction in the coming decades.

Other of the larger towns of Mohave County are Oatman and Goldroad, mining towns in the River Range, Chloride in the Cerbats, and smaller places as Peach Springs, Valentine, Hackberry, Littlefield, and Short Creek. Littlefield is in the Arizona Strip on U.S. 91, the main highway between Los Angeles-Las Vegas-Salt Lake, and, like Short Creek is in an area of great historic interest.

Mining is Mohave County's most important industry. The rich Oatman-Goldroad River Range district has produced over $50,000,000 in gold and a number of mines in the district are still going strong. The Cerbat range, around the Chloride district, has likewise been a steady producer especially heavy in lead and zinc. Over 50 properties in the Chloride district are shipping or will be shipping ores. To list the number of mines and mining properties shipping ore in Mohave county today would be a matter of pages. And yet in the vast mineral area of the county, the only genuine ghost town is called White Hills, which one day enjoyed a silver boom and will again when silver prices go higher.

Highest of the mountains in Mohave are the Hualpais. In this range is a beautiful mountain park, where Mohave residents maintain active summer activities. Throughout the vast mountain areas of the country are found hundreds of small mines, bespeaking the mineral wealth of the county. There is also an abundance of game here, always a tantalizing attraction for the sportsman.

As a mining center, Mohave County is unique in several respects: There are no great copper mines as you find in other places in the state and no county in the state produces more varied metals. When you speak of mining in Mohave you do not think of copper but you think of gold, silver, lead, zinc and rare minerals such as feldspar, tungsten, molybdenum, indium, beryllium, vanadium, bismuth, vermiculite and graphite. Even turquoise, the sacred stone used by the Navajo in their jewelry, is mined in the county. Another feature is that valuable mineral deposits have been found in almost every part of the county. Mohave The Tennessee Mine at Chloride in Mohave County is a gold, silver and lead and zinc producer. Chloride itself, in its jewel-like location, is one of Arizona's most picturesque mining camps.

The famous Tom Reed Mine at Oatman is one of Arizona's greatest gold producers. Oatman is noted as the center of widespread mining operations ranging from small prospects to operations like the Tom Reed. U.S. Highway 66, carrying its heavy load of transcontinental traffic, passes through this important Mohave County town.

The Goldroad Mine at Goldroad, in the rich River range of Mohave County, is Arizona's largest gold producer from siliceous ores, producing over a million dollars annually. There are many other important mining properties in the eastern part of the county.

In a county of superlatives, it is little wonder to find the world's largest fig tree. This tree is 18 miles west of Kingman, just off U.S. 66. At the base of two springs, the tree is approximately 50 feet high, stretches its branches over 100 feet in diameter and has produced as many as three tons of figs in one year.

One of Arizona's veritable garden spots is the Joshua Forest in Mohave County between U.S. 93 and Pierce Ferry. A drive through this extensive forest, one of the largest of its kind in the southwest, is a highlight of travel through the West.

Mohave County's mineral history, despite its rich past, remains to be written. New capitalnew discoveries will uncover in Mohave County mineral wealth undreamed of today. Future history of Mohave can be read in the Colorado River and the great power and storage projects developed and planned on that river in the county. The Grand Canyon of Arizona extends for many miles into Mohave County and out of the western portals of the Canyon came the mad Colorado, grinding and chewing a great scar eastward through the heart of the county and then turning southward to form the boundary between the county and California. The construction of Boulder Dam changed the whole complexion of Mohave County. Not only is Boulder Dam one of the most important scenic milestones in the West, but Lake Mead, formed by the dam, a body of water 125 miles long, of varying widths, is of boundless interest to the traveler and sportsman.

Around Lake Mead and Boulder Dam has been formed the Boulder Dam Recreational Area, operating Pipe Springs National Monument in northeastern Mohave County is an historic shrine preserved as a relic of pioneer days in the early Westa monument to the courage and vision of those who came to conquer a wilderness.