Hualapai Valley is a

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...

Mohave County, Arizona Mohave County is in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census, its population was 213,267. The county seat is Kingman, and the largest city is Lake Havasu City. It is the fifth largest county in the United St ...

Location

Hualapai Valley is an endorheic basin and its watershed terminates in the

dry lake A dry lake bed, also known as a playa, is a basin or depression that formerly contained a standing surface water body, which disappears when evaporation processes exceeds recharge. If the floor of a dry lake is covered by deposits of alkaline c ...

playa Playa (plural playas) may refer to: Landforms * Endorheic basin, also known as a sink, alkali flat or sabkha, a desert basin with no outlet which periodically fills with water to form a temporary lake * Dry lake, often called a ''playa'' in the so ...

called Red Lake at an elevation of 2762 feet. It is bounded on the east by the Grand Wash Cliffs and

Peacock Mountains The Peacock Mountains are a small, 26 mi (42 km) long mountain range in northwest Arizona, US. The range is a narrow sub-range, and an extension north, at the northeast of the Hualapai Mountains massif, which lies to the southwest. The ran ...

, on the south by the Hualapai Mountains, on the west by the Cerbat Mountains and the White Hills. It extends from its divide with

Gold Basin Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile meta ...

at over 2680 feet, southward to Red Lake, and northward from Kingman and the Hualapai Mountains at 4439 feet, to Red Lake.

Walapai

Walapai is a

populated place Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

on Arizona State Route 66 (former

U.S. Route 66 U.S. Route 66 or U.S. Highway 66 (US 66 or Route 66) was one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. It was established on November 11, 1926, with road signs erected the following year. The h ...

) in Mohave County,

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

, United States. Walapai is located in the Hualapai Valley along a railroad line northeast of Kingman. Walapai has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

with ZIP code 86412.

History

From 1857 to 1858 Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale, built the first federal highway in the southwest, Beale's Wagon Road. Beale's road roughly followed the 35th Parallel railroad route laid out by Lieutenant

Amiel Weeks Whipple Amiel Weeks Whipple (October 21, 1817 – May 7, 1863)Anderson, TSHA was an American military officer and topographical engineer. He served as a brigadier general in the American Civil War, where he was mortally wounded at the Battle of Chance ...

west across

New Mexico Territory The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912. It was created from the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico, as a result of ''Santa Fe de Nuevo México ...

through the Flagstaff area and then turned away northward through Peach Springs, Truxton Wash, and the Hualapai Valley, making its way through what became Kingman to a crossing on the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid drainage basin, watershed that encompasses parts of ...

near the location of Fort Mohave.

J. L. Smith ''J. The Jewish News of Northern California'', formerly known as ''Jweekly'', is a weekly print newspaper in Northern California, with its online edition updated daily. It is owned and operated by San Francisco Jewish Community Publications In ...

, was known as ''Hualapai Smith'' for being first to explore the Hualapai Valley of Arizona before any other prospector in the early 1860s.The Arizona Sentinel, Saturday, January 22, 1887, p. 3

References

{{coord, 35, 34, 29, N, 113, 56, 10, W, display=title Valleys of Arizona Landforms of Mohave County, Arizona