Powerhouse

Kingman got its electricity from this building. The Desert Power and Water Company began construction in 1907 and brought its oil-fired generators online in July 1909, a dramatic change for a county still lit by lamplight, then expanded it in 1911. When Hoover Dam's turbines came on in 1938, cheap federal power made the little plant obsolete; it was mothballed, stripped of its generators in 1940, and left as a storehouse. In 1984 a nonprofit began restoring it, and today the Powerhouse holds Kingman's visitor center and its Route 66 museum.

What the plaque says

Construction of the powerplant commenced in 1907. The oil-fired generators went online in July 1909 sparking a dramatic change throughout Mohave County. In mid-December 1911, a major expansion of the facility included the delivery and installation of new boilers and generators., When the generators went online at Hoover Dam in 1938, the former Desert Power and Water Company facility was mothballed as a standby facility. In 1940 the powerplant was dismantled with generators and equipment either sold or sold as scrap metal, and the facility was used as storage until the 1980s., In 1984 the nonprofit Powerhouse Gang initiated work to restore and repurpose the building.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kingman — 0.3 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.
• 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

• Wish You Were Here — steps away
• Locomotive Park — steps away
• Santa Fe Locomotive No. 3759 — steps away
• Wagon Route — steps away