Beale Street and Route 66 in Kingman, on foot.

Where you are

Downtown Kingman is two long streets and the short blocks between them. Andy Devine Avenue runs along the railroad tracks and is the signed Historic Route 66. It was Front Street until 1955, when the town renamed it on live television during Andy Devine's episode of This Is Your Life; old-timers still call it Front Street. Beale Street is one block north and parallel, and carried Route 66 traffic into town before the road settled on Front Street. The cross streets are numbered, 1st through 6th. That's the historic district, and you can walk it end to end in fifteen minutes.

We're at 407 E Beale, at 4th and Beale, on the north side of the street. The old Santa Fe depot is a block south of us at 4th and Andy Devine.

Beale Street is named for Lt. Edward Beale, who surveyed the wagon road along the 35th parallel in 1857 — with camels, which is the part everyone remembers. The town came in 1882 as a siding on the Atlantic & Pacific railroad, named for the surveyor Lewis Kingman, and took the county seat from Mineral Park in 1887. Mineral Park is the mining camp in the Cerbats where the turquoise still comes from. Downtown sits at about 3,300 feet, so it runs cooler than the river towns, and yes, it snows some years — people from Havasu act shocked every time.

Downtown Kingman parking and I-40 exits

From I-40, take exit 48, Beale Street, and go east. You come into downtown from the west end, past the museum and Locomotive Park, and reach us at 4th. From the east side of town, exit 53 puts you on Andy Devine.

Parking is free on the street along Beale and the cross streets. The street was rebuilt a couple of years ago — new sidewalks, lighting, mid-block crossings — so it's an easier walk than it used to be. Tour buses and big RVs use the lot at the Powerhouse, 3rd Street south of Beale, or Oak Street east of 5th.

Things to do in downtown Kingman: an hour on foot

Start at the west end and work east toward us. Everything below is on Beale or Andy Devine.

• Powerhouse Visitor Center — 120 W Andy Devine. The old power plant, built in stages from 1907, now the visitor center with the Arizona Route 66 Museum and the Electric Vehicle Museum inside. Twenty minutes is enough — the Route 66 migration exhibits are the thing. If you're in an EV, the Tesla Superchargers are here.
• Locomotive Park — 310 W Beale, across from the Powerhouse. Santa Fe steam engine No. 3759 and a caboose next to the Route 66 sign. It's the photo everyone takes, and it's where Chillin' on Beale sets up.
• Mohave Museum of History and Arts — 400 W Beale. The county museum: mining, ranching, a Hualapai room, an Andy Devine room, and a case of carved Mineral Park turquoise figurines worth seeing before you buy anything.
• Mr. D'z Route 66 Diner — 105 E Andy Devine, at 1st, across from the Powerhouse. The pink-and-teal one. Homemade root beer, a decent burger, and you will wait on a Fun Run weekend. Oprah stopped in on her road trip and they haven't let anyone forget it.
• Hotel Beale — 325 E Andy Devine. Built 1899; Andy Devine's parents ran it from 1906 into the twenties. It's been shut for decades, but Main Street relit the neon and is restoring the front. Look up.
• Kingman Railroad Museum — 402 E Andy Devine, in the 1907 depot. Small, volunteer-run, open Friday through Sunday. The depot is also the Amtrak stop — the Southwest Chief comes through once a day each direction.
• The 400 block of Beale — ours. Black Bridge Brewery is at 421, a couple doors down, which is where most walks end. Liquid Bistro at 510 does coffee and breakfast. The Beale Street Theater is a block west at 302.

Route 66 Fun Run, Chillin' on Beale, and other street closures

A few times a year the street shuts to traffic. Dates move, so check the city's events calendar or the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona for the current year. The pattern:

We're open normal hours through all of it. When the street's closed to cars, you walk in — that's the best foot traffic we get all year.

If you have half a day

• Oatman — the old Route 66 loop west over Sitgreaves Pass: Cool Springs about twenty miles out, then the hairpins, then the mining town where the burros own the street. About thirty miles, forty-five minutes to an hour. Don't feed them from the car window, and come back down before dark — the pass has no shoulder.
• Hackberry General Store — 26 miles east on the old road. The classic Route 66 photo stop.
• Hualapai Mountain Park — 14 miles and about half an hour up Hualapai Mountain Road, and a few thousand feet higher. Pines, cabins, and a different climate in July.

Grand Canyon West is often on the same itinerary, but it's not "past Kingman." The turnoff is Pierce Ferry Road, about 28 miles north on US-93, through Dolan Springs — an hour and a half from downtown. Make it its own day.

Our stop on the walk

We're the turquoise shop at 4th and Beale. The stone in our cases is mined fifteen miles from where you're standing, and we're the place downtown to see natural and stabilized Kingman side by side, tagged, with someone who'll tell you which is which. Rings, pendants, cuffs, earrings, and signed Navajo, Zuni, and Hopi work. In-house repair if a clasp gave out on the drive.

Fifteen minutes is enough to see it. Nobody's on commission and nobody follows you around. Monday through Saturday, 11 to 5. If you're passing through on a Sunday, call (928) 263-1502 or send a note ahead and we'll see what we can do.

Before you buy turquoise on Route 66

A lot of what's sold as turquoise along the road isn't. Two questions sort it out fast: is it natural or stabilized, and which mine? Our guide to buying turquoise in Kingman and the real vs fake guide cover the rest.

Related reading

• Our Kingman page — hours, directions, what's in the shop
• About Kingman turquoise — the mine and the stone
• Coming from Las Vegas · Laughlin · Flagstaff