Old trails laid out by the early explorers soon became a wagon route that helped establish Kingman as a trade and transportation center.

In 1857, Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale trudged across the present site of Kingman, surverying a wagon road along the 35th parallel. Beale’s Wagon Road was one of the first "improvements" to the roads through Kingman as it crossed New Mexico and Arizona. As time went on it became part of the National Old Trails Road.

In 1880, Lewis Kingman was surveying the route of the Atlantic and Pacific railway. With the arrival of the railroad Kingman really started to take off. The railroad also provided new routes for wagon travel, and wagons increasingly followed alongside the tracks.

Kingman has always been a transportation corridor, first from wagon roads, then the railroads, then on the path of the National Old Trails Road, a major stopping point on Route 66, and today welcoming travelers on Interstate 40.

Kingman was incorporated in 1952 and has served as county seat of Mohave County since 1887. It is a great place to live.