Little Red School

Up ahead on your left, you will spot the Little Red School, a striking red brick building with a steeply pitched roof and a distinctive white wooden belfry crowning the top. As you might guess from the name, this was indeed a place of learning, but its creation tells a bigger story about Kingman growing up. You see, turning a rough frontier outpost into a civilized, permanent community took more than laying railroad tracks. It took building a foundation for the next generation. Before this handsome structure went up in 1896, the local children were crammed into a tiny, eighteen by forty foot wooden shack. By 1893, the local newspaper publicly shamed the town, calling the cramped room a complete disgrace to the forty three scholars stuck inside. The public guilt trip worked. The town held an election and passed a six thousand dollar bond to build a real school. That is about two hundred and thirty thousand dollars in today's money. The builder, a man named T.T. Hines, went above and beyond. Rather than ordering expensive building supplies from back east, he hunted down suitable clay right here in the local desert. He fired up a large kiln and built this entire schoolhouse from homemade Kingman brick. He designed it in the Queen Anne style. This was an architectural trend popular at the time, recognizable by its steep roofs, asymmetrical facades, and decorative brickwork that gave frontier towns a touch of refined elegance. The school had its share of notable characters. The legendary character actor Andy Devine, who appeared in over four hundred films, attended classes right here. His father, Tom Devine, had moved the family to Kingman in 1906 to purchase the nearby Hotel Beale. If you have ever heard Andy Devine act, you know his signature raspy voice. That unique sound was the result of a freak childhood accident right here in town, where he tripped and fell while running with a curtain rod in his mouth, permanently injuring his vocal cords. The Little Red School closed its doors to students in 1928, but it never stopped serving the community. It later housed everything from a World War Two ration board to a library, and even hosted meetings for the Elks Lodge we just walked past a moment ago. Today, it serves as the city magistrate court. Interestingly, the bell in the tower is not the original. That was lost to history. The current bell was rescued from a Catholic church in the nearby ghost town of Goldroad, an old mining camp that ran out of luck. Now, let us keep exploring how this ambitious desert town powered its way into the modern era. We are going to head toward the Desert Power and Water Company Electric Power Plant, which is about a ten minute walk away.