El Trovatore Motel

John F. Miller, who had built the first hotel in Las Vegas, came to Kingman in 1935 after Hoover Dam went up and opened a service station on this hill in 1937, adding the tourist court that made it the El Trovatore Motel in 1939. The name is Italian for troubadour, a wink at the travelers streaming past. It billed itself as Arizona's first air-conditioned motel, and it still flies a hundred-foot neon tower and a painted map of Route 66 it calls the world's longest. Gable and Monroe are among the guests it claims.

What the plaque says

Trovatore is Italian for troubadour or traveler. Developer John E. Miller built the Nevada Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada which was later named Sal Sagev (Las Vegas spelled backwards). He moved to Kingman, Arizona in 1935 after Hoover Dam was completed, purchased the motel site and started construction. From 1937-1940 a service station, auto court and café were built. The modern settlement was a rest stop for travelers. Having heating and air conditioning, it was luxurious for it's time. Many celebrities have stayed here including Jeff Chandler, Charles Bronson, Jane Russell, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Don Knotts.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kingman — 1.1 mi
  The working hub of Route 66 in Arizona — a railroad town named for a surveyor, Andy Devine's hometown, and the last real stop before the road's two wildest endings.
• Hackberry General Store — 22 mi
  Looks like a junkyard, is a shrine — the 1934 store an artist brought back from the dead, and the Route 66 stop that inspired Fillmore in Cars.
• Oatman — 23 mi
  A gold camp in the Black Mountains that outlived its mines, now run by wild burros — reached by the wildest switchbacks left on Route 66, and named for a history worth telling straight.

More markers nearby

• Ross H. Blakely House — 0.9 mi
• Water Tanks — 1.0 mi
• Depot Plaza — 1.0 mi
• Art Hub — 1.1 mi