Oatman Highway (The Sitgreaves Pass Drive)

The Oatman Highway was originally designated as part of Route 66 in 1926 — the highway's federal designation followed the existing National Old Trails Road through the Black Mountains because no better route existed. Throughout the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s the road carried the full volume of Route 66 traffic crossing between Kingman and the California state line, including the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and the early post-WWII tourism traffic.

By the early 1950s the road had become a significant bottleneck on the highway. The Sitgreaves Pass climb to the 3,652-foot summit and the descent down the western side included multiple hairpin turns with sight lines so short that two-truck passing was sometimes impossible, grades reaching 11% on certain pitches, and blind corners that required slow careful driving. Trucks routinely overheated on the climb (engines designed for flat-land driving could not sustain the grade), and brakes routinely overheated on the descent (the constant braking through hairpins overwhelmed contemporary brake systems).

The 1953 realignment routed Route 66 traffic to the south via Yucca and Topock — a longer route in linear miles but substantially flatter, faster, and safer for the trucking and tourism traffic of the era. The original Oatman alignment continued to exist as a county road and a tourist route but was no longer part of the federal Route 66 designation. When Route 66 itself was decommissioned in the 1980s in favor of Interstate 40, the historic significance of the surviving Oatman alignment became increasingly recognized; today the road is preserved as part of the Historic Route 66 corridor and is a major destination for Route 66 enthusiasts.

Cool Springs Station — located roughly 19 miles west of Kingman along the Oatman Highway — is the first major stop on the drive and one of the most photogenic preserved Route 66 buildings anywhere on the highway. The original gas station and tourist cabin complex opened in 1927 to serve the early Route 66 motoring public; the small spring-fed seep that gave Cool Springs its name was a genuinely useful water source in an otherwise dry stretch of desert and the station became a regular stop for travelers needing gas, water, and a brief rest.

The original Cool Springs Station burned down in the 1960s after Route 66 had been bypassed and the building had fallen into disuse. The structure sat as ruins for decades before being painstakingly reconstructed in the early 2000s using historical photographs, surviving foundation stones, and contemporary materials matched to the original 1927 character. The reconstructed station now houses a small free museum, a gift shop selling Route 66 souvenirs, and a working soda fountain.

The museum coverage is modest but genuinely interesting — period photographs of the original station during its 1920s-1940s operating years, artifacts recovered from the original site, and interpretation of the broader Sitgreaves Pass and Black Mountains transportation history. Most travelers spend 20 to 30 minutes at Cool Springs; the combination of the reconstructed building exterior (extremely photogenic), the small museum, the gift shop, and the dramatic surrounding desert landscape makes it a natural break point during the longer drive.

Sitgreaves Pass — the 3,652-foot summit between Cool Springs and Oatman — is the highest point on the Oatman Highway and one of the highest elevations on the entire Arizona stretch of Route 66. The pass is named for Lieutenant Lorenzo Sitgreaves, the 19th-century military explorer who led one of the first U.S. expeditions through the region in the 1850s. The pass summit has a small dirt pullout with views back east toward Kingman and the Hualapai Mountains and west toward the Colorado River valley and the California desert beyond.

The summit area is the most physically dramatic section of the drive. The road climbs steeply through a series of switchbacks on the eastern approach, crests the pass with sharp drop-offs on both sides and no guardrails, and descends steeply on the western side through additional switchbacks. The views in both directions are genuinely spectacular on clear days — across multiple mountain ranges to the east, across the Mojave Desert basin to the west — and the summit is one of the most-photographed stops on the entire Arizona Route 66 corridor.

Below the pass on the western descent are the ghost remains of Goldroad — a gold mining camp that operated from the early 20th century through the 1940s and was once a substantial community of several hundred residents. The mining operations were significant; Goldroad was one of the more productive gold mines in northwest Arizona during its active period. Today the camp is mostly ruins — foundation walls, mine adit openings, and scattered debris — visible from pullouts along the highway. The site is on private mining-claim land and entering the actual ruins is restricted, but the roadside views are dramatic.

The Oatman Highway is generally drivable by any standard passenger vehicle in good mechanical condition. Modern cars, even subcompacts, have substantially more power and better brakes than the 1950s vehicles for which the road was originally bypassed, and the hairpins and grades that defeated period trucks are well within the capability of any normal car or SUV. RVs, large trucks pulling trailers, and any vehicle longer than about 28 feet should not attempt the drive — the hairpin turns are too tight and the sight lines too short for safe passage of long vehicles.

Daylight driving is strongly recommended. The road has no guardrails on most of the Sitgreaves Pass section, the hairpins have blind interior corners, wildlife (burros, deer, and occasional larger animals) crosses the road frequently, and the lack of artificial lighting makes night driving genuinely hazardous. Plan to start the drive no later than mid-afternoon to ensure you complete it during daylight; the full Kingman-Oatman-back-to-Kingman round trip typically takes 4 to 6 hours including stops.

Cell service is unreliable to nonexistent across much of the drive. The Kingman side and the Oatman side both have intermittent coverage; the Sitgreaves Pass section in between often has no signal at all. Plan accordingly — let someone know your timing before you start, carry water and snacks, ensure your vehicle is in good condition, and avoid attempting the drive if there is any chance of severe weather. Summer afternoon thunderstorms can produce flash flooding in the lower elevation sections.

The drive ends at Oatman — a former gold mining town that operated from the early 20th century through 1942 (when wartime gold mining restrictions effectively shut down the operations) and has survived as a tourism destination ever since. Oatman is the western anchor of the Oatman Highway and the natural turnaround point for travelers doing the drive as a Kingman day trip. The town is small (a single main street of perhaps two or three blocks of historic buildings) but densely packed with character.

Oatman's most distinctive feature is its wild burros — descendants of the burros that worked the gold mines through the early 20th century. When the mines closed in 1942, the burros were released or escaped and have lived wild in the surrounding hills ever since. The descendants now wander freely through downtown Oatman during the day, looking for food from tourists and generally tolerating photography and gentle interaction. The burros are technically wild animals and should be treated with respect, but they are habituated to humans and provide one of the more unusual tourism experiences on the entire Route 66.

The town's historic buildings include the Oatman Hotel (where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard reportedly honeymooned in 1939), various restored saloons and shops, gunfight reenactment stages, and a small mining museum. Lunch options in Oatman are modest — saloon-style burgers and basic American fare — but adequate for a midday break before the return drive to Kingman. Plan 60 to 90 minutes for Oatman itself; the combination of burro-watching, walking the historic main street, and lunch typically fills this window comfortably.