CENTURY OF KINGMAN
1882 -1982
The town of Kingman started its
existence at the construction time of the Atlantic & Pacific
Railroad. The Kingman town site was designated in 1882, when the
railroad line was located between Flagstaff and Topock. The town of
Kingman was named for Lewis Kingman, railroad engineer.
Lewis Kingman came to work for the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad in
January of 1880 to survey and locate the railroad line. Kingman started
to survey from Albuquerque, and when he located the line to Flagstaff,
he was ordered to move to the Colorado River to the present site of
Topock and survey the line in the easterly direction. Kingman arrived
at the Colorado River in May of 1880,
Kingman located the line through Mohave County; hence he established
the sites of what now are Kingman and Hackberry. He then pushed the
survey through the Truxton Canyon and reached Peach Springs. After two
months of work, Kingman reached Bill Williams Mountain and brought the
railroad line to Flagstaff about November 11,1880. Immediately after
the construction of the railroad line started. Kingman was in charge of
the railroad contract work from Winslow to Beale Springs. In December
of 1881, Kingman was appointed chief engineer with full charge of the
railroad construction. Under his supervision, the Canyon Diablo, Padre
Canyon, Johnson Canyon and Chico Canyon bridges were built, and the
track reached the site of Kingman town.
The following information came from the reminiscences written by Lewis
Kingman, and his final comments are quoted:
“In all my work in Arizona (four years) I enjoyed every detail; it was
hard and strenuous, but I like it and the solitude of the large country
was no hardship to me. I was part of creation and I had no reason to
think that it was anything but good. I tried to adapt myself to circumstances surrounding me
and mace the best of them, It was a part of my education and experience
in locating, construction and building of a railroad.”
Lewis Kingman handled many contractors, and one of them was Conrad
Shenfield. He received the “town site privileges” for the town of
Kingman, which permitted him to advertise sale of lots. Shenfield was
the actual developer of the Kingman town site. As a railroad contractor
for the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, he appeared on the scene of
Mohave County and paid taxes already for the year of 1882. At that
time, his property consisted of the wagons, scrapers, camp outfits,
tools, carts, mules, horses and blacksmith shop with a total value of
$4,555. At first, Shenfield had no deed to the original 160 acres of
the Kingman town site. County judge, John M. Murphy received that deed,
dated June 9,1886.
Conrad Shenfield was selling lots during the years of 1883 and 1888,
and suddenly died. The unsold lots appeared in the 1889 estate of
Shenfield. A man by the name of C.W. Middleton was helping Shenfield In
the development of the Kingman town site. The following advertisement
in the Alta Arizona weekly, dated January 27, 1883, attests to it: “For
particulars as to prices of town lots in Kingman address C. Shenfield
or C.W. Middleton, at Mineral Park. A perfect title given soon as the
patent for the 160 acres upon which the new town is located arrives
from Washington.”
His sudden death interrupted Conrad Shenfield’s plan to complete the
sale of lots of the Kingman town site.
In 1882, a “Sampling Works” or ore reduction plant was constructed on
the Kingman township by the already located railroad line.
For the first time, Mohave County started to collect taxes for the
Kingman town site properties for the year 1883. Only seven names of the
property owners on the Kingman town site appeared in the tax records in
1883. IN. Cochran owned a stable with corral and one horse, all valued
at $100; H.W. Coleman owned a lot with a tent on it, used as a
restaurant, and with the kitchen furniture the property was valued at
$100; H.W. Klienworst also had a lot with a tent on it, valued at $100.
W.H. Lake had on two lots a lumber house, which served as a saloon,
owned by the Ryan and Company, valued at $675. The stock of
merchandise, liquors and cigars and bar fixtures valued at $1,070, The
next property was also owned by Ryan & Company, and was known as
Ryan’s and Lassel’s Saloon, valued at $800. The bar fixtures, safe,
whiskey, cigars and 3 yoke of work oxen were valued at $575. Spear had
the highest property value, a hotel, which stood on more than two lots,
valued at $3,450. The last owner of the Kingman taxed property was EW.
Smith, who had a lot with tent on it valued at $50.
The value of the Kingman properties at the end of 1884 reached the sum
of $15,703 as compared with
$6,970 for the year 1883. More
diversified properties and the first Chinese property owners in Kingman
appeared in 1884. H.W. Coleman had a lot and a restaurant on it with
fixtures and restaurant, all worth $143; J ,W. Chamberlain operated a
steam sampling works with boiler, engine and crusher south of the
Atlantic & Pacific Railroad track work, $1,200, also the adjacent house, $300, buckboard, wagon
and 9,000 feet of lumber, alt valued at $1,500. Duck Wo owned a house
known as The Chinese Washhouse, which with furniture was worth $150. 3
.R. Halsey owned a lot with house worth $100. John S. Kolar had a lot
with house, $100 and a blacksmith shop, $60. Win. H. Lake owned more
than one building on two lots, $1,000 and the merchandise worth also
$1,000. Two properties were listed in the assessment books with a note
“owners unknown”. The first property was a lot with house adjoining the
Ryan’s Saloon, known as Mrs. Smith’s lodging house worth $100, and the
second, a lot with a house adjoining Mrs. Smith’s lodging house, known
as Mrs. Smith’s restaurant, with no value of those properties recorded.
Pink John owned a lot with a house known as The Chinese Restaurant,
worth $50, Ryan & Company owned a lot with a lumber house, known as
Ryan’s Saloon, valued at $600, and the liquors, cigars and six oxen
valued at $750, E3.H. Spear’s property represent-ed two lots with a
building valued at $400. Brother August A. Spear owned a lot with an
adobe house and corral valued at $500. Conrad Shenfield had a frame
building fenced in and valued at $1,000. Watkins brothers, originally
from Mineral Park, owned a lot with house next to the Chinese
restaurant, worth $350. The highest priced property in Kingman in the
year of 1884 was owned by Welton and Beecher, their lot and housewares
worth $850; the merchandise, $5,000, seventeen mules, $850; four
wagons, $500 and three horses, $150.
Kingman grew with each year, while mining communities, such as Cerbat,
Mineral Park or Stockton Hill, were on decline, depending on the mining
activities. Kingman started its life, not as a mining camp, but as a
town on the railroad, hence as a communication and distribution center.
Mohave County tax records give proof that Conrad Shenfield was the
“father” of Kingman He came to the Kingman site in 1882. EF. Thompson
was agent of Shenfield in 1583. In that year, Shenfield opened 32 lots
at $500 each in Block 4 on the original townsite. Block four is now
surrounded by Andy Devine, 4th Beale and 5th streets.
It is not too hard to visualize the original Kingman townsite. It was a
large square of 34 city blocks cut in half from east to west by the
main line of the Atlantic & Pacific railroad. Andy Devine was
called Front Street and across the track, Topeka was “South Front
Street”.
Conrad Shenfield opened 27 lots in 1886 and paid county taxes in the
amount of $171.50. In 1887, Shenfield opened most of the lots of the
whole townsite, selling them for up to $50, depending on the location.
A total of 454 lots were opened in 1887. A small number of lots
remained for sale at the end of 1888, the year in which Shenfield died.
In 1889, the Shenfield’s estate represented the unsold lots.
Shenfield worked for seven years and sold almost all the lots in the 34
blocks of the Kingman townsite. The value of those sold lots reached
the sum of $15,000.
The original Kingman town site was within the boundaries of First and
Sixth, Pine and Golconda streets.
In the years of 1882 - 1952, the town of Kingman was governed by the
Mohave County Board of Supervisors and policed by the County Sheriff.
In its century of existence, Mohave County government was directing the
destiny and development of Kingman for seventy years. In 1887, Kingman
became the county seat after four other communities held it, namely
Mohave City, Hardyville, Cerbat and Mineral Park.
In November of 1886 election, the
voters had a choice to leave the county seat in Mineral Park or select
any town on the railroad. Kingman won with 271 votes. Hack-berry,
another town on the railroad, received 132 votes, and Mineral Park lost
with 99 votes cast in its favor.
When the county seat moved to Kingman in 1887, the courthouse offices
were located in a two story frame building, constructed by Orvin
Peasley and W.H. Taggart. After the courthouse moved to its own frame
building, the vacated structure became the Commercial Hotel.
At the century mark of the Kingman’s existence, the old Hackberry had a
dozen of houses, and Mineral Park and Cerbat ceased to exist long
before then.
The County Board of Supervisors started to publish a voter register in
the early days, giving the name, age, residence, etc. of each
registered voter in Mohave County. In 1888 the register listed only one
voter in the Kingman precinct, by the name of William Brown, age
50. In 1890, the Kingman precinct has
listed 122 voters in the register; and in 1900 Kingman had 175
registered voters. In 1911 the number of voters was 271.
From the 1890 County voter register are introduced more than a dozen of
names and ages of voters in the Kingman precinct remembered even today;
William C. Blakely, 60, preacher and judge; Ross Blakely, 27; Lewis
V.K. Blakely, 23; Custavus
W. Beecher, 44; Foster S. Dennis, 37,
owner of sampling works plant; William H. Hardy, founder of Hardyville,
lived also in Kingman for a few years; Harvey Hubbs, 35; Li. Lassell,
56; John M. Murphy, 53, county judge; Juan Noli, 23; Coyle Potts, 52;
Richard Taggart, 30; William H. Taggart, 42; and Howard H. Watkins, 32.
The Mohave County Board of Supervisors at its regular meetings handled
the affairs of the town of
Kingman, as the city council is doing now since the time of
incorporation.
On March 4, 1391, the Board of Supervisors accepted a petition from the
Kingman residents requesting “that the remains of persons buried on the
Kingman town site between the Courthouse and the residence of W.B.
Blakely be moved to the cemetery west of the town of Kingman.” A notice
about the proposed removal of the remains was published in the Mohave
County Miner.
One month later, on April 6, 1891, the Board of Supervisors attested
that “there is sufficient money in the County Treasury raised by the
citizens of Kingman together with the $30.00 allowed by the County.”
The clerk was ordered to contract the moving of the burial remains from
the old graveyard to the new cemetery west of town. Edward Wesley
agreed to move those graves, seven in number, for the sum of $56.00.
At the July 18, 1892 meeting of the county super-visors, the matter of
the assessment of the Kingman. Townsite Company was protested by W.L.
Corbin. The supervisors ordered that the assessment was to stand as
made by the assessor.
In the early 1890’s the Board of Supervisors handled a petition of the
Kingman citizens, “asking that the 4th Street be open across the
Atlantic & Pacific track”. The clerk was instructed to notify the
railroad officials about this request. The “obstructions in the alley
between the Beale and Front streets” were discussed at the November 21,
1898 meeting of the Board of Supervisors. The sanitary commission man
was ordered to notify the property owners in Block 3 and 4 “to remove
such obstructions as may be complained to him in any and all
alleys of the town of Kingman.”
Its hard to think of a time before Kingman was founded, but in 1882,
the high desert area in Arizona
territory east of the Colorado River was just that, desert. Lewis
Kingman, working for the Atlantic & Pacific railroad, chose the area as a
station to house railroad construction materials as he mapped out a path to lay rail to California.
In a way, Kingman should be called Schenfield, as it was Conrad
Schenfield who recognized the need for a town here and applied for townsite
privileges in 1883. He began a campaign to fill the town with people, and in 1887 the Mohave County
seat was moved from Mineral Park to Kingman to better utilize the rail services in Kingman. In fact, if
every voter in Mineral Park had chosen to keep the county seat in their town, Mineral Park would have
remained the county seat, according to "Trails, Rails and Tales." Only 125 votes were cast in Kingman, but
the city won with 271 votes, with Mineral Park getting 99 votes and Hackberry receiving 132.
Kingman grew quickly in its early years. Mohave County Miner Editor
Anson H. Smith, who founded
the Miner in Mineral Park in 1882 and continued to edit the paper for
the next 53 years after moving
operations in the dead of night to Kingman in 1887, wrote about
Kingman's first residents.
"The first home to be built in the new town was that of Mrs. Delia
Reed, who built her residence on
what is now South Front Street (Topeka Street today). This activity was
followed by W.H. Taggart and
G.W. Beecher, who built substantial homes."
Kingman's early settlers faced overwhelming obstacles, none more than
supplying water to the town.
At first, wagons transported water, charged at 5 cents a gallon, but
soon Foster S. Dennis purchased land that he thought held water, and it did,
and he would construct a pipeline to Kingman, "supplying all the inhabitants with good, pure water,"
according to Smith.
Not unlike residents new to Kingman today, early people quickly
recognized the strong winds in this area, and according to Milly Lamberts in
"Trails," the city's residents utilized windmills to power water pumps on their lands. She says Kingman
was known as the "City of Windmills" for many years.
Kingman would grow and prosper, thanks mainly to mining in the area,
and the weekly Mohave County
Miner actually printed a daily publication from 1916 to 1918 due to a
mining boom. At first people
here had to sew and hand-wash all their clothes, and they depended on
such publications as the Sears
cataloge to supply material, but eventually stores were built that
supplied everything from housewares
to ranching equipment.
During the early years before the Depression, Kingman had its fair
share of saloons and hotels. There was even a red light district that was
supposed to be secret, but most knew about it, according to Irene Cofer in "Under the Lunch Tree." Kingman
was a town that built establishments when they were needed, constructing a "Little Red School House"
when education became important, and the building survives today.
In the 1920s and early 1930s, Smith used the Miner to trumpet the
benefits of Boulder Dam (now
Hoover Dam) and forecasted that the structure would turn Kingman into a
metropolis some day. While
that prognostication failed to become reality, Kingman today is a
thriving small city with a diverse, vibrant population and a clear focus on
the future. While around 10,000 live in the city limits, many more live just outside Kingman, and I lie
area in and around the city continues to grow.
From The Book Looking Back
