Arizona Route 66 Museum

The Arizona Route 66 Museum sits on the old highway in a building that is a piece of Kingman history itself. The Powerhouse on Andy Devine Avenue was built between 1907 and 1909 and first sent power down the lines in July 1909. It supplied the area's mines and the town, and later the construction of Hoover Dam, whose cheap hydroelectric power made the diesel-fired plant obsolete. The building was renovated and opened as a visitor center in October 1997. The Route 66 Museum was added in 2001, and the city's visitor center still shares the building.

The museum is run by the Mohave County Historical Society, and its galleries follow the road in order. The first room goes back before asphalt, to the trade routes Indigenous peoples used across this country and into Mexico. Next comes the railroad era, when the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad arrived in the 1880s and created Kingman and the towns along the line. Then the highway itself: Route 66 was commissioned in 1926 to connect Chicago and Los Angeles. A gallery on the 1940s to 1960s covers the diners, motels, neon signs and roadside attractions of its heyday, and another covers its decline after the interstates bypassed it, and the grassroots preservation movement that brought it back. The last room is about Route 66 in Arizona today. Mohave County, the society points out, has the longest drivable stretch of the original road.

The exhibits were renovated in a project completed in November 2025, so a visit now is different from one a few years ago. The timing suits the highway's centennial, which Kingman is marking through 2026 with events and new photo stops around town, including a Route 66 Drive Thru Shield and murals.

A single ticket also admits you to the society's other museums in town, among them the Mohave Museum of History & Arts a few blocks away on Beale Street. Photography for personal, non-commercial use is welcome, but flash is not allowed in the exhibit areas. Last entry is 30 minutes before closing. The society asks visitors to call ahead, because hours can change, and closes on a list of holidays that includes Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and the day after, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.