Old Trails Garage

The Old Trails Garage went up in 1915, named for the National Old Trails Road, the coast-to-coast auto route that ran through Kingman a decade before Route 66 was numbered. J.W. Thompson built it for M.G. Wagner, and it remains one of the oldest surviving auto-repair shops in town, its front largely unaltered. A later owner, Jasper Brewer, served as Mohave County sheriff and state representative. The garage marks the moment Kingman began serving drivers as it had once served the railroad and the mines.

What the plaque says

The Old Trails Garage dates to 1915. It was built by J.W. Thompson for M.G. Wagner who had operated the original Old Trails Garage on South Front Street, now Topeka Street. It is one of the oldest remaining auto repair facilities in Kingman and retains an unaltered façade appearance. Jasper Brewer, a Mohave County Sheriff, and state representative, was the second owner. The building between the Brunswick Hotel and the garage was built in 1912 and originally housed the Arizona Stores Company, a general mercantile business that also specialized in mining supplies as well as Navajo rugs and similar Native American crafts.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kingman — steps away
  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.
• Oatman — 22 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.
• Hackberry General Store — 23 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.

More markers nearby

• Hotel Brunswick — steps away
• Original Historic 1940's Neon Sign — steps away
• Central Commercial — steps away
• Miner's Mineral Monument — steps away