🠈 Mohave County 🠊
The Mohave Desert and Mohave County are named for the Native Americans who lived along the Colorado Arizona between present day Parker and Black Canyon (Site of present day Hoover Dam).
The Mohave people call themselves the "??Aha Makhav." It is possible that the term Mohave came from a mistranslation of hamock avi referencing The Needles rock formation near Needles, California. The tribe speaks Mohave dialect of the Yuman Language. Branches of the Mohave Tribe own the Fort Mohave Reservation (headquartered in Needles) which includes parts of Arizona, California and Nevada along with the Colorado River Reservation which is headquartered in La Paz with area in Arizona and California.
Spaniards had explored much of the Colorado River Basin. White settlement in the Mohave began in earnest with the establishment of Fort Mohave in 1859 to protect the California Trail during the Mohave War of 1858 and 1859.
There was roughly 3000 members of the Mohave Tribe. The first skirmishes were with settlers, heading to California, who did foolish things like cutting down trees owned by the tribe. Pitched battles with US troops went poorly for the Mohave and the war was over in 1859.
Mohave County was one of the original counties established by the Arizona Territorial Legislature of 1864. The first county seat was Mohave City built near Fort Mohave. It is now a ghost town. The county seat was moved to Hardyville in 1867 which was a town built to service the steamboats on the Colorado River. The County seat then moved to the booming mining town of Cerbat in 1873. Cervat went bust and is now a ghost town. It then moved to Mineral Park in 1877 and finally Kingman in 1887.
The county includes the Southwestern Stretches of the Grand Canyon and is home to 18 recognized wilderness areas along with national protected areas including part of:
- Grand Canyon National Park
- Bill Williams River National Wildlife Refuge
- Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument
- Havasu National Wildlife Refuge
- Kaibab National Forest
- Lake Mead National Recreation Area
- and Pipe Spring National Monument
The county includes The Arizona Strip. The Arizona Strip is a section of the state cut off from the rest of the state by the Grand Canyon.
Mohave County covers 13,461 square miles. In 2010, it had a population over 200,000. The largest town is Lake Havasu City. Major transportation routes include Interstate 40 (which runs transcontinental from Barstow, California to Raleigh, North Carolina), historic Route 66 which runs north of I40, US93 which runs North to Canada. Interstate 15 runs through the Arizona Strip North of the Grand Canyon.
, Route 66, USDirectory Listings:
- Mohave County - Information: Mohave County Intro