By Bob Boze Bell

Hard to believe now, but when my family moved to Kingman in 1956, there was a dirt road to Phoenix (actually Highway 93). There was a nefarious reason for this that involved Prescott, but I'll get to that.

Over the years, my father operated numerous gas stations on old Route 66 going back to 1946 when he ran a Mobil Oil gas station in Peach Springs, but the one that stands out was Al Bell's Flying A on Hilltop, outside of Kingman. Back in my day "Service with a smile" meant crisp uniforms with caps and bow ties (yes, bow ties!) with the service station attendant's name embroidered over his heart and at least four guys, dressed in white, who attacked every car that came in the driveway.

Full Service, Boy Howdy!

The first one started the gas flowing, the second one washed all the windows, the third one checked the air in all the tires—including the spare in the trunk, and the fourth guy checked under the hood. Like I said, it was FULL service and you never forgot getting gas in Kingman.

I was the fifth guy. Wearing my Oddfellows Yankee Little League ballcap, I iced jugs for free. I saved up my tips for the first summer when I was nine to buy a book out of True West magazine called "The Biographical Album of Western Gunfighters". It cost $11, for a book! But it was worth it, because it inspired me to later buy True West magazine and move the offices to Arizona, where it's been for the past 26 years! As you can see, icing jugs on old Route 66 changed my life!

Like so many Boomer kids who grew up on the Mother Road, I joined a band in the sixties. We called ourselves The Exits because, as our leader, Charlie Waters, put it, "That's where everyone will go when they hear us play." Our first gig was at the Elks Hall in Kingman. We knew four songs and repeated them all night long. Three were instrumentals (Ramrod, Surfbeat and Pipeline). We had one vocal number ("My Old Dog Shep" which Wendell Havatone sang). Mohave County teenagers were so starved for entertainment, they never complained. I played drums (that's where I earned my sticks). I made $15 for that first gig, and we were off to the races, or, I should say, dancehalls like The Smokehouse and Dinty Moore’s and bars up and down 66. We played Oatman, Needles, Hackberry and Peach Springs, but we never made it to Seligman because we didn't have any connections at the Black Cat Bar. We also learned a couple dozen new songs.

So back to that dirt road to Phoenix. It was dirt because the business folk in Prescott wanted all of us in Mohave County to drive down Route 66 to Ash Fork and take the paved road through Chino Valley and into Prescott to do our shopping. So they used their political clout to keep one of our roads dirt. We finally got a road commissioner from Mohave County, and he paved Highway 93 for us around 1963. And, as my dad liked to say, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions and so is the road to Phoenix.”

Bob Boze Bell is the executive director and co-owner of True West magazine. The Historical League, Inc., honored him as an Arizona Historymaker on February 19, 2025. He will perform with the “66 Kids Band” on June 10, 2025, at 4:30pm in the Education Center Auditorium at Sharlot Hall Museum. There is a Light reception by the Transportation Building before the performance. For more information and tickets to the event, visit SharlotHallMuseum.org.  

 “Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at www.archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/1. The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org Please contact SHM Research Center reference desk at 928-277-2003, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.