Powerhouse Visitors Center in Kingman greets 2 millionth visitor

The Powerhouse Visitors Center in Kingman, Arizona, celebrated its 2 millionth visitor since opening in 1997 by giving the winning Michigan couple a gift basket worth $400.

The Kingman Daily Miner reported Tom and Lisa Maletic were there Tuesday afternoon to visit the center’s Route 66 Museum. Tom said he wanted to see the museum’s “The Grapes of Wrath” exhibit, as John Steinbeck is his favorite author, when he and his wife were surprised with confetti and cupcakes as they walked through the facility’s front door.

The Powerhouse didn’t log its estimated 1 millionth visitor until sometime in 2009 — almost 12 years after it opened. (That moment wasn’t celebrated at the time.) The second million took less than a decade, which means the average daily visitors number is rising.

Josh Noble, director of tourism for Kingman. told the newspaper the Powerhouse counted about 123,000 visitors from 50 U.S. states and 71 countries last year.

Noble said he collects data on visitors from the signature book at the visitor center, estimating that about 20 percent of visitors sign the book, with about 2.4 persons in each party.

The book asks only for guests’ name and place of origin, written in English, French, Chinese and Japanese. No email, phone number or address is requested, which makes guests more comfortable about signing, Noble said. […]

He found guest books from 1998 to 2003 that had been lost in files and plugged those numbers into monthly tabulations to come up with his calculation for the 2 millionth visitor.

The Powerhouse Visitors Center finished a $250,000 renovation last fall, including enlarging the gift shop.

The Powerhouse, once operated by Desert Power & Light Co., was built between 1907 and 1911 and gave electricity to Kingman and its area mines for about three decades. It also supplied power for the construction of Hoover Dam during the 1930s.

(Image from the front of the Powerhouse Visitors Center in Kingman, Arizona, by Debs via Flickr)