Kingman museum tour

March 22 (Thursday)
We wanted to get back to Kingman and spend time in their excellent museums. Kingman is such a nice town/city, especially the old parts with the historic buildings. Kingman is only about a 45 minute drive over the Black Mountains from Bullhead City. The drive over the Union Pass is in itself worth the drive. Sweeping views of the surrounding countryside and very cool outcroppings of rocks.

Once we got to Kingman the first stop is the Powerhouse Museum which is also the Visitor Information center......and of course gift shop. Admission was only $3/person and covered all three museums we would visit today.

The rugged Cerbat mountains. There's a lot of silver, and some gold, in them thar hills!

Lots of traffic on the highways in and out of Kingman. This is a major transportation hub.

Up to 80 trains a day come through Kingman.

The Powerhouse is so named because this building was a steam generating station that provided power to the town and area in the early days.

The museum has nice displays and well documented information on each. It is divided in two major parts. The upstairs is all Route 66 that begins well before the highway was actually built. The provide information on the native history, the early settlers, and then the development of the transportation system right up to the modern Interstate.

Early settlers followed a wagon trail used by the army. Many turned back due to illness, Indian attacks, and just plain sick of the hardships.

The dirty thirties sent another group west along the old trails.

The heyday of  Route 66 came during the post-war era.

Downstairs is another museum that highlights the history of electric transportation. They have an interesting collection of electric golf carts, including one owned by Willy Nelson with a full bar on board! They also have early to modern electric cars and even a couple of race cars driven by electric motors. Amazing! We spent a couple of hours there and could certainly have spent more.

Willie Nelson's golf cart.

Read about the car on the left below.....

Electric race cars to........

.....early golf cars

Bombardier NEV

Electric motorcycle

Indy-style race car

This one was featured on Discovery Channel

The electric motor

Ahead of its time.

1930 version

A real cross-section of age and technology.

We stopped for a bite to eat at the diner across the street then headed over to the Bonneli House Museum.

We stopped in here for a bite to eat. A very '50's diner.

An old BNSF Steam locomotive is on display across the street.

This train has over 2.5 million miles on her.
That red protrusion that appears to be coming out of the top of the engine is this photographers error. It is something in the lot behind the train.

Lots of sights around town.

200 year old Mesquite tree.

Beautiful old homes.

The Bonelli House. It was built in 1915 to replace a home that burned down. Everyone got out safely but many household items were lost. The Bonelli's were business people and had many types of ventures including a large mercantile downtown.

The house had an upstairs and downstairs bathroom. What luxury!

This clock not only keeps time but also the day of the month.

The safe, cleverly hidden behind a curtain.

Beautiful clock in the living room.

The hot water tank located behind the stove. There are pipes that heat the water from the stove. In the summer you had a choice of a hot house or hot water.

The original electrical service. The first house burned down due to an electrical short.

Yikes!

House from the back. The cupola on the top had windows that open to create a chimney effect in the house to help remove hot air in the summer.

Side view. Notice there is a balcony front and rear. Every room on the second floor had a door to the balcony. This was a fire safety measure the first house did not have. The first house was located in the grassy area just to the left of the sidewalk.

The walls are 24 inches thick on the first floor and 18 inches thick on the second. The stone is called Tufa, a type of limestone.

Front view

With the clouds and wind and the occasional shower popping up we headed to the last museum of the day over at the Mojave Museum. Exhibits from the native pre-contact days all the way to modern times. A well done museum.

They have a large exhibit of all Presidents and the First Ladies. From Washington to Trump.

Route 66 mural with Steve McQueen.

Local mining history included information on surrounding communities.

Actor Andy Devine was born and raised in Kingman. He was in many John Wayne movies. They had a display and small theater playing Devine/Wayne movies. You could spend all day here.

Andy Devine

Murals outside museum.

We were pretty much museumed-out by this time. As well all the museums were closing for the day so the timing was right. We headed back to Bullhead City. Thoroughly enjoyed the day. We didn't get to see all we wanted so I suspect another trip to Kingman is in order for next week.
.......and that was Our View From Here!