Cool Springs and Black Mountains

Midway between Kingman and Oatman, set against the angular Black Mountains high above the desert plain, Cool Springs is a nifty old rough stone service station resurrected as a Route 66 gift shop and mini museum. Built in the 1920s, abandoned in the 1960s, and brought back to life in 2005, Cool Springs is a nice place to stop, buy a soda, and soak up the Route 66 spirit.

Between Cool Springs and Oatman, old Route 66 twists and turns past recently reactivated gold mine workings while climbing up and over the angular Black Mountains. Steep switchbacks and 15-mph (24 km/h) hairpin turns carry the old road on a breathtaking more than 2,100-ft (640-m) change in elevation over a short 8 mi (12.8 km) of blacktop.

Old Route 66: Oatman

donkey standing on gravel in a desert landscape — Oatman, Arizona. Photo © Jon Bilous/123rf.

One of the most demanding, desolate, and awesomely satisfying stretches of the old road loops north from the I-40 freeway, between Kingman and the California border. Climbing over steep mountains while cutting across a stretch of desert that brings new meaning to the word “harsh,” the narrow roadway passes few signs of life on this 50-mi (81-km) loop, so be sure you and your car are prepared for the rigors of desert driving.

Westbound drivers have it the easiest—simply follow the well-signed Historic Route 66 west from Kingman, exit 44 off I-40. From the west heading east, take exit 1 on the Arizona side of the river, then head north. Whichever way you go, you can’t avoid the steep hills that lead to Oatman (elev. 2,710 ft/826 m), an odd mix of ghost town and tourist draw that’s one of the top stops along Route 66. The gold mining town’s glory days had long faded by the time I-40 passed it by way back in 1952. Oatman looks like a Wild West stage set, but it’s the real thing— awnings over the plank sidewalks, slumping old buildings, and lots of rust. Bearded roughnecks (and a few burros) wander the streets. The gold mines here produced some two million ounces from their start in 1904 until they panned out in the mid-1930s; at its peak, Oatman had a population of over 10,000, with 20 saloons lining the three-block Main Street. One of these, the old Oatman Hotel (181 N. Main St.), was where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were said to have spent their first night after getting married in Kingman in 1939. You can sample highly recommended Navajo tacos and have a beer in the downstairs bar (which is thickly wallpapered in years and years’ worth of dollar bills!), or peer through a Plexiglas door at the room where Clark and Carole slept, hardly changed for a half-century.

Saloons and T-shirt shops line the rest of Main Street, where Wild West enthusiasts act out the shootouts that took place here only in the movies. Oatman does get a considerable tourist trade, but after dark and outside of the peak summer tourist season, the town reverts to its rough-and-tumble ways. The conservative libertarian bent of most of the local population ensures that nothing is likely to change Oatman’s crusty charms.