Oatman
| Oatman | |||
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 The main street of Oatman |
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| Location in Arizona | |||
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| Basic data | |||
| Foundation : | 1889-1891 | ||
| State : | United States | ||
| State : | Arizona | ||
| County : | Mohave County | ||
| Coordinates : | 35 ° 2 ′ N , 114 ° 23 ′ W | ||
| Time zone : | Pacific ( UTC − 8 / −7 ) | ||
| Residents : | 128 (as of 2000 ) | ||
| Height : | 826 m | ||
| FIPS : | 04-50620 | ||
| GNIS ID : | 8901 | ||
Oatman is a former gold rush town in the Black Mountains in the US state of Arizona . It is located on the former Route 66 and is now a popular meeting place for bikers, tourists and adventurers from all over the world.
history
After initially having a few other names, the place was named after Olive Oatman , a girl who was kidnapped by Indians in 1851 and freed in 1856.
In 1921, much of Oatman's smaller buildings burned down. However, the Oatman Hotel, built in 1902, remained and is now the oldest two-story house in Mohave County to be built from adobe bricks . It is now a listed building and gained fame for serving as quarters for Clark Gable and Carole Lombard during their honeymoon in 1939. The Gable and Lombard Suite is one of the hotel's main attractions. Clark Gable fell in love with the place and later kept coming back to play poker with the miners.
Oatman as a gold rush town
In the gold rush town of Oatman, gold was mined for around 30 million dollars, calculated at the value of 1930. In 1924 the United Eastern Mines, one of the largest gold mines in the area, closed. In 1941, gold mining in Oatman was banned entirely by the US government because other metals were needed much more urgently during the Second World War . Today gold is being mined again near the city. Due to its location on Route 66 the place but the fate of many other mining towns was initially spared, after the end of the gold rush to ghost towns fell. After Interstate Highway 40 between Kingman and Needles was completed in 1952 and Oatman, like many other cities, was bypassed, Oatman almost degenerated into a ghost town.
Oatman today
In the 1970s as a rival to Las Vegas at the lowest marginal tip of Nevada , the gambling town Laughlin founded, which brought together a large number of new visitors to Oatman. With Route 66 nostalgia, Oatman became a tourist attraction. Coming from Kingman , one of the most beautiful sections of the " Mother Road " leads over the winding Sitgreaves pass past "Ed's Camp" to Oatman.
Wild donkeys, called "burros", roam free in the city. They are descended from pack donkeys that were once released by their owners after they were no longer needed. There are carrots and "donkey feed" to buy everywhere so that the tourists can feed the animals. Although the donkeys are usually very tame, signs all over the city state that they are wild animals, so be careful.
Guests are offered a variety of attractions, from vintage car rallies to fake shootings in Wild West style and mock stagecoach robberies or the Sidewalk Egg Fry competition, in which participants try to fry fried eggs on the sidewalk using only solar energy . Up to 500,000 visitors come to Oatman every year.
Picture gallery
The wild donkeys of Oatman
Route 66 to Oatman
Sitgreaves Pass
Route 66 in the Black Mountains
literature
- Michael Wallis, Route 66: The Mother Road, Griffin (2008) ISBN 0-312-28161-7 .
- Holger Hoetzel, Route 66: Straße der Sehnsucht , Ullstein; (1992) ISBN 3-550-06558-2 .
- Tom Snyder, Route 66: Traveler's Guide and Roadside Companion Griffin (2000) ISBN 0-312-25417-2 .
