Bellemont, Arizona
| Bellemont | |||
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_(crop).jpg) Landscape northeast of Bellemont. View of Wing Mountain with the San Francisco Peaks in the background on the right . |
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| Location in Arizona | |||
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| Basic data | |||
| State : | United States | ||
| State : | Arizona | ||
| County : | Coconino County | ||
| Coordinates : | 35 ° 14 ′ N , 111 ° 50 ′ W | ||
| Time zone : | Pacific ( UTC − 8 / −7 ) | ||
| Height : | 2174 m | ||
| Postal code : | 86015 | ||
| Area code : | +1 928 | ||
| FIPS : | no | ||
| GNIS ID : | 26201 | ||
 Storm damage due to the October 6, 2010 tornadoes |
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Bellemont is a place with the status of an Unincorporated Community in Coconino County in the US state of Arizona .
geography
Bellemont lies on the western edge of the Coconino National Forest . Interstate 40 , part of historic Route 66 in this area , and a BNSF railroad , both on their way from Flagstaff in the east to Williams in the west , run past the town .
The immediate area is flat to undulating with a maximum slope of 5%, it is called Bellemont Flat . The soils are heavily clayey with a high proportion of montmorillonite . They tend to swell when heavy rain events occur occasionally, and at the same time their water absorption capacity is limited. The former leads to damage to the buildings standing on it, the latter to temporary swamping. The soil is between half a meter and one meter thick , and the bedrock below consists of basalt .
history
The first settler to settle on the site was a sheep farmer named Walter Hill in 1876; The decisive factor was the availability of a permanent fresh water source. The designation was initially volunteer . A little later taught stagecoach company Northern Arizona Stagecoach Company there is a relay station one. In 1882 the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad reached the place that was named Bellemont after the daughter of one of the company's administrators, Belle Smith. The railway line itself came into the possession of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway a few years later after the sinking of the A&P .
The easy availability of wood from the surrounding area and the need for the railroad for this led to the construction of a sawmill, which enabled the hamlet to flourish, albeit a modest one. The population rose to just under four hundred and remained at this level continuously for the next fifty years. Due to the more favorable location of Flagstaff and Williams, the slow decline of Bellemont began in the 1930s. In 1963, when Interstate 40 was built, the site was largely deserted. For the 1969 film Easy Rider , a short sequence was shot at the now defunct Pine Breeze Inn , in which the two protagonists, played by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper , try in vain to find accommodation for the night. In 1985 three houses were still occupied.
Bellemont today
Since the 1990s, Bellemont has been fundamentally redesigned. The remains of the historic town center disappeared, instead an industrial area extends there, including branches of the steel construction company Schuff and the paper and cellulose manufacturer SCA . A truck stop was built north of the interstate , about a kilometer east of it and reaching to the border of the national forest, a new residential area. As of 2015, the population is slightly below 300 again.
On the morning of October 6, 2010, an extraordinary weather event occurred when two tornadoes passed through the town in quick succession and two more hit the immediate vicinity. A total of 200 buildings were damaged, 30 of them so badly that they were subsequently uninhabitable.
South of Bellemont is Camp Navajo , a military facility covering around 115 square kilometers with an extensive road and rail network. Established in 1942 by the United States Department of Defense as a supply base for units fighting in the Pacific and passed into the hands of the Arizona National Guard in 1982 , it is now used as a material store , especially for ammunition and rocket engines , and as a training area for the National Guard. Located on the site since 2004, a station of the National Weather Service .
literature
- Bellemont Area Plan from 1985. Digitized on Coconino County's website, PDF file, 383 kB (English)
Wikilinks
Individual evidence
- ^ Bellemont Flat in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey
- ↑ Information about the location on the website of a real estate company from Flagstaff, accessed on November 21, 2017. (English)
- ↑ Information with a picture on a website about Route 66, accessed on November 21, 2017.
- ↑ Overview of the manufacturing facilities on the Schuff website, accessed on November 21, 2017. (English)
- ^ Corina Vanek: SCA to close Flagstaff plans. Arizona Daily Sun, June 7, 2017, accessed November 21, 2017. (English)
- ↑ 2015 population on the United States Census Bureau website , accessed November 21, 2017.
- ↑ 3:30 pm Storm summary. Arizona Daily Sun, October 6, 2017, accessed November 21, 2017. (English)
- ↑ Felicia Fonseca: Bellemont becomes tornado alley. Arizona Daily Sun, October 7, 2017, accessed November 21, 2017. (English)
- ↑ a b Information on Camp Navajo on the GlobalSecurity.org website , accessed November 17, 2017
- ↑ Basic information on Camp Navajo on the Arizona Department of Civil Protection and Military Affairs website, accessed November 21, 2017. (English)
- ↑ Basic data on the station ( Memento of the original from April 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the NOOA website , accessed on November 21, 2017. (English)
