Book Review: The Lunch Tree

 The Lunch Tree by Irene Cornwall Cofer, Mohave Pioneers Historical Society Inc., Kingman AZ, Drawings by Roy Purcell, 1969.  Available at Kingman Library.  Mostly this is a primary source work as Cofer describes her life and experiences.

Irene Cornwall was born, and mostly raised in the Sandy River area, close to present day Wickieup.  She presents stories form her own life, as well as articles dealing with the lives of those around her.  As a young girl her mother passed away and they moved to Kingman for a couple of years where her father was Mohave County Treasurer. 

She provides a story of meeting a woman from the Red Light district in Kingman--which was located at first and Beale at the time and later had to be relocated as it was too close to the school.  It was known as the Rabbit Patch and Black Jack ruled as queen.  On one occasion the author thinks she met Black Jack.  The lad she met called her "Baby."  She was eight at the time.

She also describes going past the slaughter house after crossing under the railroad bridge.  There were cattle ranging close by to the slaughter house.  This and other things I have read makes me think slaughter house canyon us named for the meat packing plant, and not for a moaning woman ghost who murdered her children.  

She described the wagon trip from Kingman to the Sandy River area.  The route followed the west side of the Hualapai Mountains and cut over to the Sandy Valley through Signal which was a larger town then and had a mining mill.  There were several stops along this route and they would stay with different people along the way enjoying their hospitality.  The "Lunch Tree" was one such stop.

This book is a good genealogy source if you have relatives who lived in the area, especially the Wickieup area.  She also gives information on people who lived in Signal, Hackberry and Kingman.  She provides a good description of their home life after they returned to The Big Sandy farm and ranch after living in Kingman a couple years.  She and her older sister took over the household chores which often included serving others who came to collect mail as the ran the post office and if people came at dinner time they would expect to be fed.  Traveling was harder in those days, and farms were far apart.  

Book Review: Kingman-Arizona

 Kingman-Arizona: City in Mohave County by Roman Malach, printed by Graphicopy, New York, 1974, Arizona Bicentennial Commission. 

This is a brief version of the history of Kingman Arizona up through 1974.  Kingman started in 1882 as a railroad town.  It was originally called Sheffield's Railroad Camp for the individual who first platted the city and sold lots.  However the name Kingman took hole after the individual who decided a train stop was needed here.  In 1887 the county seat was moved from Mineral Park to Kingman.  A few things I found interesting.  There is the mention of a slaughterhouse in Kingman.  This makes me think that Slaughterhouse Canyon takes it name form the meat packing rather than the weeping ghost.  He quotes the phone book and local businesses which informs me that there was a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Kingman before 1940.  (This would be the Oak Street Baptist Church at  Oak and Sixth streets.)

Harvey House was an important restaurant for travelers on the train.  It was next to the train station.  The original courthouse in Kingman was a rented building which became the Commercial Hotel.  The first constructed courthouse was close to where the courthouse is now.  It wasn't until 1915 that the current courthouse was built.  Fourth of July rodeos were held, and at times cars were used to form the arena.  Kingman also had a ball team which would play with other nearby communities. 

 

Port Kingman was established by Charles Lindbergh and the airport was dedicated i 1928.  The original airport was by Bank and Airway.  It was part of a series of airports from Las Angeles to New York called the Transnational Airline later to become Trans World Airline.  

Kingman was incorporated in 1952.

Book Review: Mohave County, Arizona, USA, One Thousand Miles of Shoreline

Mohave County, Arizona, USA, One Thousand Miles of Shoreline by Carlos Elmer, W A Krueger Company, Phoeniz, AZ, 1974.  This book is in the Arizona section of the Kingman library.

This is a photographic essay of Mohave County, focusing mostly on the lakes but also including the Hualapai Mountains, the Arizona Strip, Grand Canyon National Monument (west of the Grand Canyon, Big Sand River and Aquarius Mountains, and Joshua Trees.

The highlight of tourism in Mohave County are the lakes on the Colorado River, Lake Mead formed by Hoover Dam, Lake Mohave formed by Davis Dam, and Lake Havasu formed by Parker dam.  There are also desert lakes by Topock.  With lakes comes boating and fishing.  But lakes are also for swimming and just sitting beside and enjoying the view.  An unusual tourist attraction in Mohave County is London Bridge which connects an island to the rest of Lake Havasu City which is now the largest city in Mohave County.

Hoover Dam and Lake Mead

Lake Mohave

London Bridge in Havasu

These picture are copyrighted in 1974.  No infringement intended.

Book Review: Kingman Army Air Field

 One of my regrets in moving to Kingman is we arrived too late to tour the museum at the airport that memorialized the Army Air Field.  It closed like a year before we moved here.  I went looking for it and found the hangar it had been in, but it was empty.  

I found a binder with information on the Army airfield at the Kingman Library.  This is marked reference so you cannot check it out. However they allowed me to make a copy.  It is either in the Arizona section or in the reference section.  It seems to move back and forth.  It was compiled by Bob Chilcoat in 2017.

The Kingman Army Airfield was born out of WWII.  There was such a need for an air training location that worker were diverted from the Davis Dam project to finish the airfields.  The air field was set up to teach gunnery for the B-17.  It was the sixth such school, and the largest.  The major portion was what would later become the Kingman Airport.  

The school was first called Flexible Gunnery School at Kingman.  However as of May 1943 the name was changed to Kingman Army Air Field.   The school was activated August 1942 and the first class was in January of 1943.  The classes were progressive, starting with bb gun shooting, then skeet shooting, and finally air to air shooting. It would be inactivated at the end of the war, summer of 1945, and closed Feb. 25, 1946.  36,000 gunners were trained.  

The base included all the things you would see in a small community: library, post office, chapel, movie theater, stage with base orchestra and regular dances, day room, large cafeteria, hospital, etc.  The base hosted many celebrities including Bob Hope and his troupe.  Also the Three Stooges visited.  

There were actual seven sub bases to KAAF.  This includes the main base in Kingman, the ground to ground range also in Kingman, Red Lake Field, Antares or Hackberry, Yucca, Topock, Signal and Lake Havasu.  Lake Havasu was often used as a place for soldiers to recreate in Lake Havasu.

Subsequent to this the base was converted to Storage Depot 41.  Word was received in September of 1945 of the change, and the first plane was received on October 19, 1945.  Planes from all over the world were no longer needed and many were flown to Kingman for storage or disposal.  By the end of the year there were almost 5000 aircraft in Kingman.  The highest total officially would be about 5500, however many have said there were 7000 aircraft, the highest total in the world to that point.  Mostly these were large bombers, but there were other aircraft as well.  Some were pot marked with shrapnel and barely flyable.  However there were no accidents in bringing the aircraft to Kingman.  

I most enjoyed in this collection, the article from the Arizona Highways magazine.  Here they described the final resting place and salvage of the aircraft, some of which was very important to those who flew in them.  A few were rescued, like Enola Gay that dropped the atomic bomb.  It is now in a museum.

This collection also has plenty of pictures.  I share a few but there are many more in the binder.

skeet shooting while moving

Kingman Storage Facility

Kingman and subbases

A training devices using movies

oxygen room, gives the fell of being at 30,000 feet

chapel

Bob Hope and crew