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 ...

in Mohave County, Arizona.

Location

Hualapai Valley is an

endorheic basin An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

and its watershed terminates in the dry lake or playa called Red Lake at an elevation of 2762 feet. It is bounded on the east by the

Grand Wash Cliffs The Grand Wash Cliffs extend south-southeast from the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument in northwest Arizona west of the Shivwits Plateau south through the Grand Cliffs Wilderness and into the Lake Mead Recreation Area. The Grand Wash Cl ...

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 The Hualapai Mountains are a mountain range located in Mohave County, east of Kingman, Arizona. Rising up to 8,417 feet at its highest peak, the higher elevations of the Hualapai Mountains support Madrean Sky Island habitats, and are host to ...

, on the west by the

Cerbat Mountains The Cerbat Mountains ( yuf-x-wal, Ha'emede:) is a mountain range in Mohave County in northwest Arizona immediately north of Kingman. The Cerbat Mountains and the White Hills (Arizona) adjacent north, are the dividing ranges between the Detri ...

and the White Hills. It extends from its divide with Gold Basin 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 on

Arizona State Route 66 State Route 66 (SR 66) is a surface road in the U.S. state of Arizona in Mohave and Coconino Counties. In 1914, the road was designated "National Old Trails Highway" but in 1926 was re-designated as U.S. Route 66. In 1985, U.S. Route 66 was dro ...

(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 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 ...

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 Edward Fitzgerald "Ned" Beale (February 4, 1822 – April 22, 1893) was a national figure in the 19th-century United States. He was a naval officer, military general, explorer, frontiersman, Indian affairs superintendent, California rancher, ...

, built the first federal highway in the southwest,

Beale's Wagon Road In 1857, an expedition led by Edward Fitzgerald Beale was tasked with establishing a trade route along the 35th parallel from Fort Smith, Arkansas to Los Angeles, California. The wagon trail began at Fort Smith and continued through the New Me ...

. 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 , native_name_lang = hu , settlement_type = Census-designated place , image_skyline = Peach Springs-John Osterman Shell Gas Station-1929.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = John Osterman Shell ...

Truxton Wash Truxton may refer to: *Truxton, Arizona, a settlement south of the Grand Canyon in Mohave County, Arizona, USA *Truxton, Missouri, a small town west of St. Louis *Truxton, New York, a town in Cortland County, New York, USA. * ''Truxton'' (video ga ...

, 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 Fort Mohave was originally named Camp Colorado when it was established on April 19, 1859 by Lieutenant Colonel William Hoffman during the Mohave War. It was located on the east bank of the Colorado River, at Beale's Crossing, near the head of t ...

. J. L. Smith, 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

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