13 miles away
Monolith Garden Trail
A seven-mile multi-use trail near Kingman through volcanic rock formations, with little shade and no water available.
Santa Claus
A themed roadside stop founded near Kingman in 1937, closed to business in 1995 and demolished some time in 2021 or 2022.
- Rank in Arizona
- #150of 727 ranked
- Overall score
- Score 48.5 out of 100medium confidence
- Most looked up
- Decemberby Wikipedia readers
- Category
- Historic Site
Santa Claus, also known as Santa Claus Acres, was a roadside settlement in Mohave County, Arizona, about 14 miles north-west of Kingman on U.S. Route 93. It was founded in 1937 by Nina Talbot, a property dealer who adopted the Santa Claus theme to attract buyers for the subdivided land around it; the buildings put up that year included the Kit Carson Guest House, renamed the Santa Claus Inn. By 1942 it had become a tourist stop, drawing traffic between Phoenix and Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam. The land sales Talbot intended never followed, in part because the only inhabitants were the people employed there, and she sold her interest in 1949. Later owners publicised the site through the writing of Robert A. Heinlein and the restaurant rater Duncan Hines, and through a remailing service advertised in 1961 that postmarked letters from Santa Claus for a small fee. Trade declined from the 1970s and the last businesses closed in 1995. By the 2000s the site held several vandalised buildings, a wishing well and a pink children's train known as Old 1225. What remained was demolished in late 2021 or early 2022.
Where it is
Santa Claus is a historic site near Kingman, in Mohave County. It is one of the historic sites in this database, and appears in the statewide ranking of Arizona attractions.
How this ranking was reached
No official visitor count is published for Santa Claus, so its score rests on public interest and tourism significance, and is capped below the level a measured attraction can reach. That is why the medium confidence above is not higher. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page, and every axis is broken out under Facts and sources at the foot of this page.
Note on the data: No official visitor count is published for this attraction.
Sources
- Public interest: Wikimedia pageviews (en.wikipedia, human traffic), 2024
- Coordinates and designations: Wikidata(opens in a new tab)
- County: U.S. Census geography via FCC Area API, resolved from coordinates
Record last verified 2026-08-12.
More photographs
Todd Huffman, CC BY 2.0 · licence(opens in a new tab) · source(opens in a new tab)
Nearby attractions
13 miles away
White Cliffs Wagon Trail Park
White Cliffs Wagon Trail Park, in Kingman, Arizona, preserves an 1800s mining wagon route with wheel tracks cut into bedrock, now used by hikers.
13 miles away
Mohave Museum of History & Arts
A private, not-for-profit Kingman museum, founded in 1961, dedicated to the heritage and arts of north-western Arizona.
13 miles away
Locomotive Park
Locomotive Park, in Kingman, Mohave County, Arizona, is a park that is home to the preserved steam locomotive No. 3759.14 miles away
Route 66 Museum
Route 66 Museum, in Kingman, Arizona, traces the history of Route 66 and displays about 16 historic electric vehicles, including one owned by Willie Nelson.
14 miles away
Bonelli House
An 1915 Kingman house listed on the National Register following a 1985 survey of 63 local historic resources.
Facts and sources
Place
- Category
- Historic Site
- Destination
- Kingman
- County
- Mohave County
- State
- Arizona
Visitation
- Annual visits
- Not published
Ranking
- Overall score
- 48.5 / 100
- Visitation score
- No published count
- Popularity score
- 37.1
- Significance score
- 58.0
- Confidence
- medium
Visiting
- Coordinates
- 35.3367, -114.2160
- Last verified
- 2026-08-12