Travels and Adventures: January 2010

Monday, January 18, 2010

Oatman AZ - January 15, 2010

my route:

Oatman AZ, originally uploaded by kimberzy.

I took a drive to Oatman, AZ on Friday, January 15, 2010. It was just a day trip ... a long day trip - lol. I came thru Oatman a long time ago, but it was late and all the stores were closed and the burros were absent from the street at the time. I always wanted to go back someday, so someday became Friday - lol. The weather was perfect...sunny and warm. For a small town, there were a lot of people in the streets...tourists (like me). I believe the town's population is around 200 right now (not counting the burros - lol). The town is confined to a very small area, so it is hard to believe the town had a population of over 3,500 at one time.

Oatman was named after Olive Oatman, an Illinois girl who was kidnapped by Indians after her family was massacred. She was used as a slave by the Mojave Indians, and was later rescued in 1857 near the site of the current town of Oatman.

Oatman was originally a mining tent camp and quickly became a gold mining center after 2 miners struck a $10 million gold find in 1915. The town and the mining booms were short lived though as a fire destroyed many of the mining shacks in town in 1921, and 3 years later, the main gold mining company, United Eastern Mines, shut down completely. After the mine shut down, the town survived by catering to travelers on Route 66. When the I-40 was built in the 1960's, connecting Needles to Kingman, it completely bypassed the town of Oatman altogether, and the town nearly died out for good.

Nowadays, the town is mostly comprised of souvenir stores and, of course, the town's burro poplulation, who roam freely through town. There are staged gunfights on the weekends. There are many little shops and food stands in town. Some of the shops sell burro food (which are bags of carrot sticks) which you can feed to the burros, Just don't feed the babies, who can choke on the carrots (some burros have a "no carrots" sticker on the forehead, warning visitors not to feed them for this reason). The burros are descendants of the burros brought to the town by the miners in the 1800's. They were turned loose in the hills when the miners no longer needed them. The roam the streets during the day, greeting visitors and of course, waiting for a treat. At night, they roam back up to the hills.

The town also is the home of the famous Oatman Hotel, which was the honeymoon stop for Clark Gable and Carol Lombard, who spent their honeymoon night there on March 18, 1939. Some say their ghosts still roam the hotel. This I cannot verify - lol. The hotel has also paid host to several politicians and movie stars too, and the town of Oatman has also been used as the location for several movies, such as Foxfire, How the West Was Won, and Edge of Eternity.

You can reach the town of Oatman on State Route 95, which can be accessed off of the I-40 near Needles and Kingman, AZ. The road, which is part of the historic Route 66, is twisty and narrow, but scenic, and not at all busy (which is good, since the road is narrow!).

I will return there someday, probably on my next trip to Arizona, which will probably be to the Grand Canyon in the near future.

Til then, happy trails!