Kingman may launch a Route 66 festival in October

The City of Kingman, Arizona, and the city’s Economic Development Advisory Commission are working to bring back a Route 66 festival by October.

According to the Kingman Daily Miner (subscription required), city commission Chairman Gene Kirkham said the goal is to hold at least a two-day event with cars, booths, vendors and live music.

Kirkham said it could include a parade with classic cars, floats and more, capped with a large car show.

“I know it’s quite a ways off, but like (Commissioner) Mr. Hinckley said, it’s going to take an awful long time to put this together,” the chairman said. “I’m hopeful that the city will be able to work with us on that; (Tourism Services Manager) Josh (Noble) has given us some assurances that he’ll work closely with us to try and get that going.
“Really I’m hoping that it’ll turn into a yearly event. We had one a few years ago; it was received all right, but I don’t know what happened. It just fell apart, and I’d like to see it back.”

I suspect interest for such a festival would be strong from many directions, especially when the COVID-19 pandemic presumably would be largely solved by then.

Also, the 100th anniversary of Route 66 would be only five years away.

Many cities along the route want to get festivals up and running smoothly so they can more fully cash in by the time the centennial arrives in 2026.

UPDATE 2/7/2021: The city announced the Kingman Route 66 Street Drags would return in October after the 2020 event was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic.

(Image of the Kingman water tanks by GothEric via Flickr)

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.