1922 - July 31: Mohave County General Hospital (MGH) opened in Kingman. Previous to this date, it was "necessary to remove to hospitals in Los Angeles and other coast cities disease-stricken or injured persons requiring special treatment." MGH was built on the southeastern part of the old County Poor Farm at 301 W. Beale Street, just west of the high school and about one mile northwest of what was known as "the Gulley House." Its Spanish-style architecture with a south-facing 141-foot ten-arch colonade across the front cost about $65,000. Of concrete and hollow tile with exterior plastering, as used in nearly all government hospitals of the time, one story was around a central court and the second floor above the north wing was intended for helps' quarters. The hospital was very well constructed but very poorly planned from a functional standpoint.

The 26-bed hospital was staffed with six nurses and boasted a $2,000 X-ray machine, the latest technology. There were thirteen rooms, plus a three-bed ward for women and a ten-bed men's ward. A private room served as a nursery and obstetrics patients were delivered in their beds. Each of the patient rooms was on an outside wall. The main section of the first floor covered 15,000 square feet. The basement included a large sized dining room, boiler and cold storage rooms, as well as many rooms which could be used in case of necessity.

The facility was a county-owned and operated facility. Although opened to serve the entire county, most of the patients were accident victims who worked on the nearby railroad. The staff included a cook and a janitor. J.P. Gideon continued on as superintendent of the hospital and county farm and Dr. T.R. White was the physician in charge. Dr. Toler White had graduated from medical college in 1901 and came to Arizona through the Indian Service. His profession took him to Valentine, Oatman, Goldenroad, and Kingman (1920). (He would remain until his death in 1945.)

In less than two weeks there were "23 pay patients occupying the rooms and wards, besides the indigents that have to be cared for at county expense. The greater number of patients are men who have met with accidents on the new railroad grade, although a few from town and county have been received."

There were no paved streets -- only dirt and gravel -- between the hospital and downtown. None of the washes elsewhere around town were bridged, so travelers would have to wait for the waters to subside after a large rain.

[A new fire station was completed for the year-old Kingman Fire District.]

[Also, this year and the next, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad began double tracking in and around the Kingman area. (The entire line would be completed no later than 1929.) The single track system with sidings was no longer cost-effective due to the increases in traffic.]

[Early in 1922 in Toronto, Canada, the hormone insulin was first purified from a part of the pancreas. This was hailed by some as one of the most revolutionary moments in medicine. One year, the group of diseases known as diabetes was an automatic death sentence because of acute metabolic decompensation -- critically high or low blood sugars resulting from loss of insulin secretion. The next year, both adults and children had hopes of living full and productive lives even with the disease. (Most people with insulin-requiring diabetes would go on to develop one or more secondary complications during their lifetimes, however. Thus, while a large number of patients would be alive thanks to insulin therapy, it would become increasingly clear that the remarkable discovery of insulin was incomplete. The importance of a homeostatic delivery system for this insulin -- in part, controlled by over half a dozen other hormones -- would not be recognised until many decades later. The burden of long-term "complications of diabetes" caused by inadequate blood glucose control would become huge.) (The Nobel Prize would be awarded in 1923 to the two discoverers of insulin.)]

[1923 - X-ray film, although introduced by Eastman in 1918, only came into general use from about this year. Glass plates had excellent image quality and it took some time to replace the older technique. (Less flammable but more expensive safety film would become available starting next year only because of accidents. The most infamous of these would be the Cleveland Clinic fire when the X-ray film store caught fire and 129 people died.]

[April: The first brain tumor operation under local anesthesia was performed in at Beth Israel Hospital New York City.]

[1924 - Six cardiologists representing several groups founded the American Heart Association. This period would later be described as a time of "almost unbelievable ignorance" about heart disease. The early efforts of the AHA to overcome that ignorance included enlisting help from hundreds, then thousands, of physicians and scientists.]

[The Great War had blocked access to continental medical centers by U.S. students, forcing them to seek postgraduate training at home. Recognizing the value of a large resident staff for their proliferating specialty wards, hospitals increasingly accepted their role as educational institutions, improved supervision of interns, occasionally began to pay them, and developed residencies. By the 1920s, when there were enough hospital positions for all graduates, state licensing boards finally began to require postgraduate training. (See also 1897, 1913]

[Congress tightened up the Harrison Act of 1914 this year with a law enacted to prohibit the importation of heroin altogether, even for medicinal use. This legislation grew out of the widespread misapprehension that, because of the deteriorating health, behavior, and status of addicts following passage of the Harrison Act and the subsequent conversion of addicts from morphine to heroin, heroin must be a much more damaging drug than opium or morphine. This ban on heroin did not deter the conversion of morphine addicts to heroin. On the contrary, heroin ousted morphine almost completely from the black market after the law was passed.]

[1926 - Summer: Officially, the numerical designation 66 was assigned to a Chicago-to-Los Angeles route, some nine years after legislation for public highways first appeared. With that designation came its acknowledgment as one of the nation's principal east-west arteries to connect the main streets of rural and urban communities along its course for the most practical of reasons: most small towns had no prior access to a major national thoroughfare. U.S. Route 66 began its life as the "Main Street of America." (To help sell the user taxes as applied to fuel, Washington, D.C. prompted the various states to propagandize its citizens with highway magazines. Twenty-three states obligingly launched what were in effect department house organs. Arizona Highways magazine dates from April, 1925 when the not yet designated U.S. Route 66 across northern Arizona was all dirt.)]

[An anonymous doctor in Sydney, Australia, resuscitated a new-born baby with an electrical device later called a "pacemaker." The doctor wanted to remain anonymous because of the controversy surrounding research that artificially extended human life. (See also 1932)]

[1927 - During this year and the next, the cattlemen in the isolated areas of Mohave County were among the worst affected by the drought which prevailed over much the the country's western rangeland.]

[The "iron lung," first modern and practical respirator, was invented this year using an iron box and two vacuum cleaners. The first users were polio sufferers with chest paralysis. Almost the length of a subcompact car, the iron lung exerted a push-pull motion on the chest.]

[Laminated windshields for cars were first introduced. Prior to this, windshields were made of common glass which shattered into sharp shreds upon breaking. The new layer of film between two layers of thin glass served to hold the glass in place upon breaking, greatly reducing injuries from flying glass. It also provided occupant retention and eliminated cuts that arms and heads received from going through a windshield. (The interlayer would be improved over the years, but it would not be until 1966 that all passenger cars produced in the U.S. would be equipped with an improved laminated windshield designed to withstand about three times the impact velocity of the windshield previously in use.]

1928 - July 24: At 4:30 p.m. a difficult four-inch valve on the half-filled 20,000 gallon Union Oil Station Tank No. 3 was being changed. Twenty-four inches of water had been added to the tank to settle to the bottom and raise the fuel out of the way during the changeover. The pressure of the outflow, however, hindered the valve replacement and the three workers were soon being drenched in gasoline after the water was exhausted. The stream of fuel had gone about sixty feet down to the railroad tracks and was there apparently sparked by a switching signal. Flames rushed back to the tank and set the trio ablaze. A fourth man on the scene quickly grabbed some old clothes from one of the worker's parked cars to smother the flames on one of his colleagues; a passersby helped him with another. The third man was trapped between two tanks. A roof-top siren was soon calling the Kingman Volunteer Fire Department to the scene. The various men and boys raced from their places of business to meet the blaze of unusual proportions. A contemporary newspaper report indicated that five tanks were "growing red with the intense heat, and belching forth red tongues of flame and clouds of black smoke…"

Unmindful of their own safety, the volunteers worked all night to move a large number of barrels of oil and gas out of harm's way and saved thousands of dollars worth of property for the lumber yards and warehouses in the immediate vicinity. "Things got real excited" at MGH as the burn victims were brought in. A number of men and women helped the victims to cars which drove to the hospital. Three doctors and the entire staff of nurses provided what treatment they could. The front porch was crowded with men speaking in whispers as the gathering women with little children cried or were in shock watching the fire in the distance. Cars soon completely filled the street in front of MGH as friends and family arrived. Two of the victims died that evening and the third the following night. Two of the men were natives of the town; all three were in their first year of marriage. The grim toll for that day included those three fatalities, over $30,000 worth of property destroyed, and the Santa Fe system shutting down for over four hours. The tanks burned and smoldered for days, with the kerosene tank being the last to be exhausted. (The latter had earlier boiled over as a train passed by it.) "An unfriendly heavy wind from the south or the giving away of the rivets in the tanks might have spelled Kingman's doom…" Many citizens helped the fire fighters to bring the fire under control after two days and nights. The tragedy "cut deep into the hearts of Kingman people." (See also July 1973)

At this time, the hospital's nurses lived on the second floor there over the kitchen and received $90 per month plus room and board. After five months with MGH they would receive a $5 per month raise.

And Dr. Walter Brazie came to Kingman this year -- actually less than a week before the fire. Getting his medical degree at the University of Nebraska in 1924, he entered practice the following year at the Fort Mohave Indian School. One year later Dr. Brazie relocated to the town of Oatman. Most of the conditions treated there were broken bones or silicosis caused by dust from the mines. He acquired knowledge and skills quickly: he had to, for the doctor he replaced in Oatman left on the same stage Dr. Brazie came in on. (Dr. Brazie would go on to practice a total of 52 years at Mohave General Hospital. He was the 32nd doctor to record his license to practice medicine in Mohave County.) (See also 1910, 1957, 1963, 1971, and 1979)

[This year, vacuum-tubes were reported in use to amplify the electrocardiogram instead of the mechanical amplification of the string galvanometer. Also, a table model ECG machine was converted into a first portable version weighing only 50 pounds and powered by a 6-volt automobile battery. (See also 1895, 1901, 1949)]

[The spinal block anesthesia technique was popularized in the U.S. this year. (See also 1898)]

[Some rain in the winter of 1928 and the summer of 1929 only marginally improved the feed situation. Cattle prices remained depressed.]

[1929 - In the 1920s and 30s, air mail carriers and passenger aircraft used the town as a refueling stop. Chosen the previous August, "Port Kingman" was dedicated on June 25, 1929 before a crowd of almost 1500 local people. While promoting a new coast-to-coast air mail service for the Transcontinental Air Transport Company two weeks later on July 8, Charles A. Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart were met by thousands of Arizonans when they made a refueling stop here on the bouncy, freshly oiled and compacted runway. The Los Angeles (Glendale) to New York route had been laid out by Col. Lindbergh via Kingman and Winslow, Arizona; Albuquerque and Clovis, New Mexico; Waynoka, Oklahoma; Wichita, Kansas; Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Columbus, Ohio. "Port Kingman," near the present-day intersection of Airway and Bank Streets, was the first commercial airport in Arizona and TAT was the forerunner of TWA. The 310-acre site was about 2-1/2 miles northeast of town. Runway #1 ran diagonally from Airway Avenue south to Airfield Avenue (into the southeast quatrant of what are today the County Fairgrounds after being crossed over by I-40). The shorter Runway#2 was east-west between Bank and Harrison Streets. Both Kingman and Winslow were Lindbergh-planned airports. Some sixty thousand dollars worth of radio equipment, flood lights, boundary lights, a refueling truck and additional equipment was set up near the Spanish adobe-style terminal building. (Lindbergh had visited Tucson two years earlier, just four months after his historic solo flight across the Atlantic. He would make regular stops in Kingman and stay at the Beale Hotel.)]

[A school for Indian children in Valentine, northeast of Kingman, was operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Approximately 200 children, mostly boys and predominantly from Hualapai families, attended the brick school adjacent to 7-8 acres of farm land under cultivation. A brick warehouse, mess hall and kitchen, and dormitory were there along with a 16-bed hospital. This was a single-story frame building, well-equipped and immaculate, according to a special committee report issued this year.]

[Dr. Perkins of the National Indian Service, who was an eye and throat specialist from Phoenix, came to the Indian school to perform tonsillectomies on the children. He believed this would cure colds and improve the student's health. He taught Dr. Brazie the technique after performing a dozen in one morning and a dozen more that afternoon. In addition to infected tonsils the Indian children also had trachoma, an infectious disease of the conjunctiva and cornea. Little was known of the disease, but Dr. Perkins had a technique that worked. Dr. Brazie was chosen to go to Phoenix to learn how to do a tarsectomy. The tarsal cartilage was scraped off and a mercury solution was applied to the eye lid with a shaved off tooth brush. Crude though this was, it prevented blindness.]

[A German gastroenterologist developed a 135 degree lens system and a dual trocar approach for laparoscopy as a diagnostic method for liver and gallbladder disease. (A decade later he would publish his experience of 2000 liver biopsies using local anesthesia without mortality.) Also this year, a separate punture site was first advocated for inflating the abdomen. (See also 1911, 1972)]

[Incumbent politicians in Washington, D.C. who had, between drinks, strongly supported Prohibition for many years, now voted to "get tough" by increasing alcohol penalties to more than ten times as their original levels. (See also 1920, 1925, 1933)]

[A group hospital prepayment plan was begun in Dallas, TX this year. For a payment of 50 cents a month, the hospital would provide to a group of public school teachers complete hospital care when needed. (Within 5 years this plan would enroll 408 groups with 23,000 members. (See also 1934)]

[Taylor was among the earliest to use controlled cervical traction for the reduction and immobilization of cervical injuries. He used a halter device this year that used the occipital protuberance and mandible as purchase points. (See also 1933, 1973)]

[October 29: The stock market crash occurred when the underregulated and overinflated economic bubble of the Roaring 20s, which had peaked two months earlier because of speculative frenzy from lowered interest rates, burst.]

[1930 - Mohave County pop.: 5,572 ; Kingman pop.: 2,275 (voting precinct).]

[The ratio of physicians to the population in the United States was down to 125 per 100,000 as the medical establishment sought to produce "fewer but better doctors." The percentage of patient-physician encounters that were house calls was 40%. The national maternal mortality rate was 670 maternal deaths (during a pregnancy or within 42 days of the end of a pregnancy) per 100,000 live births.]

[February: About 120 miles eastward down the road from Kingman in Flagstaff, a comparison of photographic plates taken at Lowell Observatory in January resulted in the discovery of the planet Pluto by 24-year old Clyde William Tombaugh. Confirming observations led to worldwide release of the news in mid-March.]

[Six traffic stop signs were installed on Kingman intersections. "Talkies" came to Kingman and Lang's Theatre had a grand opening to celebrate the first all-talking movies to come to town.]

[President Herbert Hoover signed the bill for the Boulder Dam Project, 71 miles to the northwest of Kingman in the Black Canyon on the Colorado River.]

[The highly conservative monetary policy followed by the Federal Reserve Bank beginning this year completely failed to counteract the tidal wave of bank failures of the next few years, even though the money supply was shrinking due to hoards of bankruptcies and bank failures. The leading industrialized nations responded to the crisis by imposing trade barriers on imports with the hopes of increasing demand for domestically produced goods and to raise revenue from tariffs. Unfortunately, the resulting fall in imports created unemployment abroad that quickly invoked protectionism in response, creating unemployment back in the U.S. The Great Depression had begun and within a few years one out of every four persons who could work was unemployed. The last thing the employed wanted to do was spend their hard-earned money, so fewer goods were purchased and money was literally saved under the mattress, not in a bank. The lack of adequate social programs left people of all social strata depending on relatives and friends for charity.]

[1931 - By mid-year the construction tent town of Boulder City, NV was being established six miles west of the dam site. Within a year it would have over 475 buildings for 80% of the project workforce and their families. The structures would include a $50,000 hospital on the northeast side of town. (Practically every red brick building would be torn down as soon as the dam was completed.)]

[July: A new 20-bed Clark County Indigent Hospital was established west of the railroad tracks in the town of Las Vegas, NV, population 7,000. (For the first two years of its existence, the new county hospital would operate with one doctor and one nurse, both on duty or on call 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Overflow from the Boulder City hospital were brought in by ambulance several times a day. Most of the cases involved heat prostration.) (See also 1940, 1950, 1968, 1973, 1978)]

[This year the Southwest was hit by the worst drought ever known. Most cattle were so debilitated by the feed conditions of the last few years that it seemed hardly worth the effort to drive them to market from the ranches. (Official precipitation records for Kingman show February received 4.43" of rain and August another 6.57" for a year-end total of 18.93" -- apparently the all-time high which still stands. February 1932 received another 4.48". Grace Neal's recollections on pp. 89-90 about the drought thus come into question, although it is possible that only the Kingman area received the heavy precipitation while the rest of the county was much drier.)]

[1933 - From this year through 1938 during the Great Depression, thousands of unemployed male youths from virtually every state would be put to work as laborers on road gangs to pave the final stretches of Highway 66 which would change the face of the nation. These workers were just a small part of the Civilian Conservation Corps, an organization formed as part of Pres. Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal as an attempt to counter the rampant unemployment and economic despair resulting from the Great Depression.]

[The "Noble Experiment" was ended this year as the states ratified the Twenty-first Amendment and ended Prohibition. The million and a half member Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform spearheaded the drive for sanity in light of overwhelming evidence that Prohibition did not improve and severely worsened the nation's wellbeing. It was seen as politically safe for incumbents to have the communities themselves vote by secret ballot to send either a "wet" or "dry" delegate to the special state ratification conventions. And while the manufacture and distribution of alcohol again became legal, many counties and communites chose to remain "dry." (See also 1920, 1925, 1929)]

[By this year eleven thousand banks (almost half of the banks in the United States) that had invested their deposits in the stock market were forced to close (fraud exposed by the stock market crash was another major reason for closure). Many industries and business that had dumped their profits into stock also shut down.]

[The first human influenza virus was isolated this year, but would not be visualized for another decade. (Named in 1898 after several years of experiments with unfilterable pathogenic substances smaller than a bacterium, a virus -- Latin, poison -- wouldn't first be visualized until 1935 after the invention of the earliest version of the electron microscope.) (See also 1919)]

[Crutchfield this year was forced to use an alternate means of traction than Taylor in a patient that presented with a C2­C3 dislocation and a compound fracture of the mandible. Crutchfield inserted Edmonton extension tongs into the outer table of the cranium and attached the tongs to a pulley and weight system. (Over the next several years, Crutchfield would make several modifications to the system and his instrument became the standard for cervical traction. One major disadvantage of Crutchfield tongs was that the pins needed to be placed near the cranial vertex, which limited the amount of traction that could be safely applied. Another inconvenience was the requirement of a limited burr hole through the outer table to obtain sufficient bony purchase.) (See also 1929, 1973)]

[In the 1920s, there had only been three surgeons in North America whose practices were limited to children. One of them, Dr. WIlliam E. Ladd, organized a training program in pediatric surgery at the Boston Children's Hospital in the 1930s. His superb clinical, teaching, and investigative skills, combined with his legendary personal attributes, stimulated many young surgeons to train with him in this exciting new specialty. (They, in turn, would organize their own training programs at other medical centers throughout the country. The subsequent growth of this highly academic specialty would be spectacular. The original North American textbook by Ladd and Gross would be published in 1941. Twelve years later Gross would publish an updated and expanded book (1000 vs. 455 pages).]

[Also this year, fifteen-year old Grace Short was living with Dr. Walter and Mrs. Mona Brazie in Kingman, caring for their children and doing some housework. Twenty-two year old J. Leonard Neal (see 1910) had developed the habit of visiting Grace whenever he was in town, coming down from the Spear Ranch house some seventy miles away on the east side of the Cerbat Mountains and north of the Hualapai Valley. The trip was made half by horseback and half by a borrowed Ford roadster with a rumble seat. (The two had met the previous August at a social gathering at the home of Clyde and Irene Cofer in the Big Sandy River valley.) One evening in March she had some photographs to show Leonard and, since the three small Brazie children were particularly active, Grace took the young man and the photographs to her bedroom for some peace and safety for the photographs. The door was open and, from time to time, a concerned Mrs. Brazie would pass by and look in at the two young people sitting on the floor. From her demeanor she made it clear that she disapproved of such goings-on. The next morning, Mrs. Brazie took Grace aside and told her that she must find somewhere else to live. She made it quite clear that she felt she could no longer take the responsibility of them meeting in her home. That evening after Grace told Leonard, he simply talked to his parents. They then took her into the household of Leonard's aunt in Kingman. Grace and Leonard were married that June. (See also 1971)]

[Dr. Brazie was well skilled and became adept in all fields of family practice. He made no distinction between Indians, Mexicans, or any other race, for he loved people. The mines paid him $175 a month. Office calls were $2 and house calls $3. Often, patients paid in eggs or whatever they had. Through the 1930s Dr. Brazie had offices with Drs. Marvin Paup and Paul Long, D.D.S. (1907-1985) on the second floor of the old Central Commercial Building at 4th and Beale Streets.]

[1934 - By this time, many ranchers, pushed totally beyond the limit of all their resources, were forced to leave the industry. Calving in the early spring was a heartbreaking disaster.]

[A chapter of the 20-30 Club of America was chartered in Kingman. Its purpose was to stimulate younger businessmen of the community to become involved in unselfish community service. The new club immediately moved to conduct a survey of existing needs in our community which the club might take on as a project. A park was number one and street signs were number two on a lengthy list. The twenty-man club proceeded to get the land which had been set aside by Charles Metcalfe's restricted decree for usage. (Born in 1855, Metcalfe had come to Kingman in 1917. He proceeded to buy land on the west side of town and divide it up into certain developments. Many of the streets around what is now the area of the I-40 and Beale St. interchange were planned and named by him. He stipulated in his recording of the Metacalfe Addition that a strip of land be set aside for the use of the youth of Kingman in perpetuity. Also, Metcalfe proposed development of the Hualapai Mountain Park and held the offices of County Probate Judge, Superintendent of Schools, U.S. Postmaster in Kingman, and was an officer and member of the B.P.O. Elks and Masonic Lodges in town. He died in 1943.) This site was just to the west of MGH. The 20-30 club raised some $3000 in Kingman and a similar sum in heavy equipment and other donated labor. The County Board of Supervisors budgeted funds for water, maintenance and a custodian: the landscape architect for the Hualapai Mountain CCC Camp projects (see 1936) was hired as that part-time custodian. The downtown park was born. (This land had formerly been part of the old County Poor Farm. It is not known how long the Poor Farm continued to exist after the hospital was built.)]

[July 1: The first appreciable rain in years began to fall in the area. "The rain continued, growing into storms of unprecedented violence by the middle of the month. The Cerbat Mountains and the Hualapai Valley, rested and recharged after such a time of inactivity, burst into a celebration of life. Anything with a desire to green, greened, and whatever wanted to grow, grew. In less time than the drought-battled-ranchers could believe, there was a magical fatness over the range." (While rains are listed by Grace Neal on pg. 122, official precipitation records for Kingman show July received no measurable rain this month. See also 1931.)]

[Ft. Mojave on the Colorado River was closed down as the Indian School. (It would stay unoccupied with a caretaker on the premises until 1942 when, on government orders, the buildings would be sold and dismantled for lumber. (See also 1890)]

[An American surgeon, who described laparoscopy as a good diagnostic method many times superior than laparotomy, used an instrument which consisted of a built-in forceps with electrocoagulation capacity. (See also 1869, 1911, 1929)]

[During the 1930s, several U.S. physicians equipped their own cars with lap belts and began urging manufacturers to provide them in all new cars. (See also 1954, 1965)]

[The Dallas hospital prepayment plan was soon copied elsewhere, and, by 1935, 17 plans would have enrolled 215,000 people. The Blue Cross logo was first used in 1934 in Minnesota by the predecessor of the Blue Cross Hospital Service Association. (Hospital prepayment and group practice had been decried by Morris Fishbein, influential editor from 1924-1949 of the Journal of the American Medical Association and of Hygeia, the AMA's family health magazine, in his condemnation of the 1932 report of the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care as "Socialism and communism, inciting to revolution." Fishbein, an M.D. who never treated a single patient, was a prolific writer and an outspoken and litigious opponent of "medical quakery" -- which included any and all treatments which were non-toxic, not produced by the drug industry, and easily available without a prescription. His 1932 book, Fads and Quackery, became a classic in the field and was referred to by many authors who wrote on the subject in the coming decades, ridiculing but rarely investigating his targets. Fishbein started a virtual war against the Natural Healer and downplayed the value of nutrition. His product endorsement procedure became common practice within the AMA. Products were seldom tested for their real effects on health, only advertising revenues were considered. ) However, the American Hospital Association and the American College of Surgeons approved prepaid group hospitalization in 1934.(See also 1929, 1935, 1947, 1949, 1965)]

1935 - Dr. Walter Brazie of Kingman gave a talk in Phoenix at the meeting of the Arizona Medical Association on the topic of insurance examinations.

[From the 1935 Arizona State Highway Department map. Note also the road west of Kingman to the Colorado River (now AZ 68). This road over Coyote Hill (just outside of town and less than a mile west of Beale's Springs) is mentioned elsewheres as "being repaired and put in a passable condition" after rains in Oct. 1903. It is not known when it was first paved. The real oddity on this map is the road from Kingman to the Boulder Dam site (now Hoover Dam). This was designated AZ 69 until the dam was completed in 1936, when it became US 466 (now northern US Hwy 93). AZ 69 was then moved to the Phoenix-Prescott routing.]

[August 14: The Social Security Act was signed into law. Health insurance provisions were excluded because of the opposition of the medical profession and private insurance interests.]

[September 30: Boulder Dam was dedicated by Pres. Roosevelt, and the powerplant structures would be completed the following year. Kingman began billing itself as the Gateway to the new Dam. Lake Mead began to fill behind the structure. Although thousands of workers left Southern Nevada, many others stayed to make permanent homes in Las Vegas and Boulder City. (See also 1930, 1960)]

[1936 - January: Flagstaff Hospital was founded about 120 miles to the east of Kingman and at an elevation of about 7,000 feet.]

[May: The first advisory board in Mohave County met to define boundaries for fencing the open range into individual properties. Two years earlier, the U.S. Congress had finally passed the Taylor Grazing Bill, legislation which was to have a profound effect on the ranching industry in the western U.S., where herds of sheep and cattle still grazed vast tracts of unfenced public land. With the cattle now being behind wire, there came a reduction in the amount of labor needed to control the herds, and the days of the large communal roundups passed swiftly. Stockmen were now given some title to their range and, thus, an incentive to perhaps manage and improve it in the way best suited to that area. (The conscientious ranchers who stayed in business over the years were practical environmentalists long before the word was ever in common usage.)]

[By the end of the 1930s the rangeland in Mohave County was fenced, largely due to the labor of members of the Civilian Conservation Corps. While in the Kingman area, these young men also worked on roads and erosion control, and built cabins in the Hualapai Mountain Park. This park consists of 2,560 acres of ponderosa pine-forested land, broken by granite outcroppings. Ranging from 6,000 to 8,000 feet above sea level, the park includes rental cabins, picnic grounds, public campgrounds, a custodian's house, and other facilities.]

[1937 - By this year, heparin was finally a safe, easily available and effective blood anticoagulant. It was useful for clearing up internal blood clots and for many dangerous operations where blood normally coagulated quickly and could block flow to the lungs with sudden and fatal results. Originally discovered in 1916, heparin was by the late 1920s extremely expensive, toxic and unsafe for humans and made from dog liver. Researchers in Toronto developed the complex method of deriving the substance from beef lung and intestines. By 1935 the still mysterious chemistry had been studied and the first human trials begun with the purified and standardized crystallized product which could be administered in a salt solution. (See also 1906)]

[During the 1930s, a wide variety of physical-chemical therapies were devised for cancer treatment including heat, cold vibration, ultrasound, diathermy, hydrotherapy, and all froms of electricity. "Frozen sleep" was a new technique in which for five days the patient remained "frozen" under the scrutiny of the physicians. The patient was then thawed to consciousness in the hope that the lowered temperature would positively affect the cancer.]

[1938 -- January: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- his own legs permanently paralyzed by polio contracted during an outbreak during 1921 -- established the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis as a unique partnership of scientists and volunteers to conquer polio. Singer/actor Eddie Cantor created the first grassroots fund-raiser for the National Foundation, asking the public to send dimes to President Roosevelt at the White House. The effort was called the March of Dimes, which later became part of the official name of the foundation. (See also 1900, 1955)]

[An over-the-counter elixir which contained chemicals similar to antifreeze and killed 107 people, many of them children, last year prompted the passage this year of The Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. This expanded the affected commodity list, increased penalties, broadened the concepts of adulteration and misbranding, and paid special attention to particularly harmful commodities. It also required manufacturers to list on their products' labels the ingredients used in the processing. Furthermore, the act required manufacturers to test food additives for safety before putting them on the market. This addition to the law further protects consumers from harmful products. (See also 1907, 1962)]

[An article in Science magazine reported that tobacco smoking shortened the life span, based on a study of data for some 6800 male smokers and nonsmokers. (See also 1964)]

[The standard positions and wiring of the six ECG chest leads were defined. (See also 1895)]

[A Hungarian developed a specially designed spring-loaded needle which he used to induce pneumothorax (collapsed lung). (The Veress needle would become the most important instrument today to create pneumo-peritoneum, inflation of a body cavity for laparoscopy.) (See also 1901, 1961)]

[The 27th edition of what was originally Gray and Carter's Anatomy Descriptive and Surgical was released officially at last bearing the name it had long informally carried: Gray's Anatomy. (The "doctor's bible" would be a household name by the time of its 39th edition in 2004. Several other anatomy texts would, of course, also be in use, some with better quality illustrations.) (See also 1858, 1887)]

[December 17: The Constitution and By-Laws of the Hualapai Tribe were approved by the Office of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C.]

[1939 - January: The Arizona Hospital Association was formed when healthcare leaders from the state's 45 hospitals convened a meeting in Phoenix. The Association's objective was "to promote the welfare of the people through the development of hospital and outpatient service" through professional and public health education, scientific research and cooperation with organizations having similar goals, such as the American Hospital Association." Those who could not attend sent telegrams and letters of support.]

[Half of women having babies in this country did so in hospitals.]

[The first formal certifying board for an osteopathic specialty was organized this year, for radiology.]

[Dr. Arthur A. Arnold started a medical practice this year in Chloride, north of Kingman and on the western side of the Cerbat Mountains. (Born Sept. 22, 1913 in Canada, in 1941 he would start four years of service in the U.S. Army before returning to the area. See also 1946 and 1960)]

[September: Kingman received a record 9.85" of rain this month.]

[1940 - Mohave County pop.: 8,591 ; Kingman pop.: 2,956.]

[Because of the generation of cheap hydroelectric power by Boulder Dam, by this year the Kingman Powerhouse had ceased electric production but was used as a substation and equipment storage facility.]

[Las Vegas' Clark County Indigent Hospital was renamed Clark County General Hospital, a board of trustees was elected, and a surgical wing was added. Clark County's population was 16,414. (A house physician for $150 a month would be added in 1942, and the following year the Federal Works Administration would spend nearly $450,000 for new construction and upgrades.) (See also 1931, 1950, 1968, 1973, 1978)]

[1941 - Maj. John C. Horton of the West Coast Flying Training Command Headquarters at Moffett Field, California, took a trip to Kingman and found it the perfect location for a future gunnery school. The land was fairly level, the population was sparse, and land was available at a fair price. The clouds of war had been building in Europe since the mid-1930s.]

[The cardiac catheter was employed as a diagnostic tool for the first time, utilizing catheter techniques to measure cardiac output. (See also 1964)]

[A landmark report was published this year of the screening test for lower female genital tract neoplasia. Validated by Dr. George N. Papanicolaou and an associate, the so-called Pap smear would slowly become the single most effective cervical cancer screening test. The results of the Pap smear cannot be used to make a diagnosis or formulate a treatment plan. Rather, the Pap smear functions solely to screen for abnormalities and, based upon the report, can lead to further evaluation. (Improvements would continue to be made in the technique and the standardization of Pap smear terminology would be accomplished with the introduction of the Bethesda System in 1988. Use of the Pap smear test would reduce the annual death rate from cervical cancer from 26,000 in 1941 to 4,600 in 2000, a time period in which the population doubled. Between 15% to 25% of Pap smear test results miss abnormal and cancerous cells (known as a false-negative result). However, a repeat Pap smear may detect dysplasia that was missed on the prior sample, and so annual testing is recommended.)]

[Recommended Dietary Allowances were first prepared by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council. (The first edition of the book containing the RDAs would be published two years later. The objective of the first edition of the work was to "provide standards to serve as a goal for good nutrition." The RDAs were defined as "the levels of intake of essential nutrients that, on the basis of [current] scientific knowledge, are judged by the Food and Nutrition Board to be adequate to meet the known nutrient needs of practically all healthy persons." (Emphasis added) (Unfortunately, what research was already showing but what would be very slowly accepted was the fact that many people are in the special nutritional needs category requiring sometimes significantly higher levels of nutrients: those with metabolic disorders, chronic diseases, injuries, premature birth, other medical conditions, drug therapies, and active or stressful lifestyles. Revisions of the RDAs over the years would barely cover only some of the extra requirements.) (See also 1997)]

[A group of practical nurse educators addressed the expected post-World War II nursing shortage by starting the level of nursing first known as practical/vocational nurses. The National Association for Practical Nurse Education was formed. They observed the work of people known as "chore girls," "practicals," and other such titles, and somehow knew what was desperately needed then and what would hold for decades to come. They developed a scope of practice around the excellence of those who were serving people too sick to care for themselves. (Three years later, this small group of nurses would journey to Washington, D.C. to lobby for licensure. After numerous meetings, the federal government would recognize practical/vocational nursing as a legal occupation and a new profession would be born. The group's name would evolve into the National Association for Practical Nurse Education & Service (NAPNES). State licensure would eventually be achieved throughout the country. LPNs -- licensed practical nurses -- would be legislatively provided in every state with a complex set of rules and regulations promulgated by state boards of nursing.)]

[December 7: With the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, war was declared against the Japanese Empire and, shortly afterwards, against Germany. The B-17 Flying Fortress bomber, along with the rest of the family of war planes, was needed immediately on both fronts.]

[1942 - January: Port Kingman (the TAT field) became a training site for flying students from the coast. The placement of a ban on flying on the West Coast has led to civil flying schools coming into the interior at least 150 miles. Also, Dr. Walter Brazie gave first aid instruction for poisonous gases.]

[May: The Army Air Force authorized the construction of a gunnery school near Kingman, nine to eleven miles east of town on U.S. 66. The estimated cost was about $9 million. The perimeter fence would go up first the following month.]

[August 4: The Army Air Force Flexible Gunnery School was officially declared open for business. The Hualapai Valley north of town was requisitioned by the War Department as a ground and aerial gunnery training school, with little if any compensation paid to the ranchers. And only a short notice was given to move family and livestock.]

[There would be 105 Arizona Medical Association physicians serving in the Army and Navy during World War II. This was almost 10 percent of the 1233 total physicians in the state.]

[Dr. Brazie was a member of the Mohave County Union High School Board of Education from this year through 1953.]

[The two-step exercise test for cardiac function was standardized this year.]

[September: Construction of the base hospital began with the month and the first Medical Detachment arrived from California by month's end.]

[December: By this time some 7,000 persons -- the first wave of what would eventually be 36,000 personnel trained at the Gunnery School near Kingman -- had arrived: the 1120th through 1123rd squadrons, the all black 334th Aviation Squadron, and the 100th Guard Squadron (M.P.s).]

[By mid-month or so, seven ambulances arrived on station and were turned over to the base hospital.]

[Also this month, sixty-seven miles down the Colorado River from Hoover Dam, Davis Dam had been started at the beginning of the year, with Bullhead being the construction headquarters. (The latter was located on the site of an old mining ghost town, Hardyville. The location for the dam was originally selected back in 1902.) Work on the dam was temporarily suspended now, and the construction crews were sent to Kingman to help with the new base. Kingman's biggest boom occurred as the population instantly doubled due to military personnel and their wives as well as civilian defense workers. Housing was the biggest problem for the newcomers, and servicemen and their families found shelter anywhere they could, no matter how basic, crude and expensive it sometimes was. Many area residents also opened their homes and rented accommodations. Among the newcomers were members of many cultures and races, at times a challenge and education to the local population -- as it was often across this nation during these years. Severe overcrowding occurred in the Kingman schools because of the influx of so many military dependents.]

[1943 - January: Two groups of medical personnel arrived this to work at the base hospital. With sanction from Warner Brothers, 'Bugs Bunny' (holding the rank of technical sargent) was adopted as the official base mascot because of so many 'rabbits' in the area.]

[February: The TAT field (see 1929) was closed as a civilian airport because it was in the flight path of the new base. All private flying was moved to a local airport on the other side of town.]

[Also this month, Sir Robert Macintosh published an article in The Lancet about the laryngoscope blade that now bears his name.]

[March: The women of Kingman, Chloride, Oatman, and the airfield sewed 500 curtains for the day rooms at the base.]

[April: Bob Hope and his troop of entertainers made a visit to the airfield, andthe Three Stooges would do likewise in two months. Morale was always an issue among a large group of young men miles from home, many for the first time, and no place to go with their weekend passes but the tiny desert town of Kingman. Other big name entertainers assisted the USO in keeping the people happy and willing to work all out for the war effort.]

[May 7: The facility was officially named the Kingman Army Air Field. The base continued to grow and change as many new squadrons were added and some of the existing ones were combined. A detachment of Chinese gunners were even sent to here for training. The principle aircraft were B-17 bombers, with A-T6, A-T1 and A-T23s used for flight training and target-towing.]

[September: The locals also arranged for a rodeo and barbecue to be held on the base. Many of the newcomers were from urban backgrounds and unfamiliar with the talents and abilities of cowboys. The spectators' wild appreciation nearly embarassed the low profile cowpunchers off the Arizona range who had never expected to be so popular.]

[October 19: Actinomycetes is a group of soil organisms capable of inhibiting the growth of bacteria and fungi. From one highly active strain (subsequently renamed Streptomyces griseus) an antibiotic was isolated and named streptomycin on this day. This substance stopped the growth of several virulent bacteria known to resist penicillin (see its 1945 story) including the dreaded tubercle bacillus. (A few weeks later, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota would begin the first toxicity tests, then the first tests on guinea pigs, and later the first clinical trials. At every stage, streptomycin proved successful beyond everyone's wildest dreams. The preliminary tests were so promising, in fact, that the pharmaceutical company Merck was convinced to set up a production plant immediately, to provide the large quantities of streptomycin necessary for clinical trials. By 1944, the first large-scale trials in the U.S. and England proved beyond doubt that streptomycin was miraculously effective against TB. It also proved effective against bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid fever and other infectious diseases caused by gram-negative bacteria. People had called TB the white plague, and feared it more than the bubonic plague. Highly contagious, essentially incurable and capable of causing death decades after infection, it has decimated mankind since the time of the pharaohs. In the past two centuries alone, it had killed more than one billion people - more than every war, famine and other epidemic put together. Until around 1950, the most effective treatment would be rest, in one of the hundreds of sanatoria scattered across Europe and the U.S. People had tried all sorts of remedies, from fermented mare's milk to bleeding by leeches and exposure to the sun. But, for most, there was no cure and no relief - they slowly wasted away, emaciated, breathless and exhausted, coughing blood until their weakened bodies could stand no more. Streptomycin saved thousands of lives, but it soon became apparent that it caused serious side-effects, too, among them vertigo, nausea and deafness, and that bacterial resistance to the drug was developing at an alarming rate. The new antibiotic would then successfully be used in combination with two non-antibiotic drugs - isoniazid (discovered in the U.S. in 1952) and PAS (para-aminosalicyclic acid, discovered in Sweden in the same year as streptomycin, but delayed because of the war). These combined drugs, and a few others, would remain the frontline in the battle against TB. But TB never really disappeared. Slowly, all over the world, strains resistant to all major anti-TB drugs emerged. By the end of the 1970s, TB deaths would begin to rise again, especially among the poor, overcrowded, malnourished, and those whose immune systems would have been weakened by HIV/Aids. According to the WHO, it now kills two million people a year worldwide, and the global epidemic is growing, particularly in developing regions such as Africa and south-east Asia.) (See also 1946)]

[December: The boiler in the Kingman Army Airfield's Base Hospital exploded, injurying two electricians.]

[1944 - January 6: A bus loaded with gunnery students bound for the base crossed the railroad tracks just north of the entrance. The driver did not see the westbound 45-mile-an-hour oncoming train. Train and bus collided, and twenty-eight students died. {Reports indicated that all the victims were taken to the base hospital and not to MGH. The morgue in Kingman is listed as having been overtaxed from this accident.} (Four days earlier, a B-17 flying near McClellan Field, California, disintegrated in bad weather. Of the thirteen men killed in the resulting crash, eleven were from Kingman.)]

[July: In the second half of the month, the new underpass was opened into the base below the railroad tracks. It had been officially approved a month before the bus accident and was authorized a few days afterwards.]

[During the year the field, redesignated Army Air Force Unit 3018, was one of the top training schools in the U.S. In competition with the six other gunnery schools, Kingman often took top honors.]

[1945 - The population of Kingman was estimated to be about 7,000. Mining activity was evident in 12 mining districts with 29 operational mines. Agriculture was mostly ranching with 257 ranches in operation.]

May 3: Physician and surgeon Toler Rector White, M.D. died following thirty-five years of service to this community. [Five days later: V-E Day ended the war in Europe as Nazi Germany surrendered.]

[June 30: With the war in Europe over, the 4,145.32 acre Kingman Army Airfield was deactivated and personnel either discharged or transferred. The approximately 600 buildings consisted of barracks, hospital facilities, warehouses, training facilities, recreation facilities, etc. Three months later the War Assets Administration set up shop at Kingman. The base, along with four others, would now become a holding area for a huge amount of surplus military aircraft.]

[July 28: The Base Hospital was closed, but a "stand-by crew" was still in place.]

[August 14: V-J Day ended the war in the Pacific, with Imperial Japan officially surrendering three weeks later.]

[October 10: The planes began to fly into Kingman from many different U.S. and overseas bases. War-weary aircraft could be seen landing with great frequency throughout the days that followed. A number came in with an engine or two feathered. Occasionally an aircraft which had experienced hydraulic failure would be landed wheels-up. Amazingly enough, there were no serious accidents or fatalities involved in the mass movement of planes to the base. By the end of the year, almost 4,700 aircraft were dispersed on the vast acreage adjacent to the airfield.]

[Now, Scottish Dr. Alexander Fleming in London had worked on and off with a mold extract he named penicillin from 1928 through 1934. (He wrote a paper about his findings in 1929, but human observations of the antibacterial effects of various molds go back almost thirty-five centuries.) Fleming's method of growing the Penicillium mold, however, failed to produce a stable product. He couldn't produce it in the quantity necessary for testing. While the antibacterial properties of the extract were very interesting, they could not be translated to practical use. One of his former students pursued work with a crude penicillin extract and achieved two cases of success with humans, but his results were not published. Over the next few years several other researchers who interacted with Fleming and student Paine did further work with both success and failure. (Fleming also was one of many researchers who did some work with the early sulfonamide family of drugs in the latter 1930s. These originally were dyes without antibacterial properties. Slightly changing their chemical makeup gave birth to what we would know as the sulfa drugs which revolutionized medicine and saved many thousands of lives.) Finally, in 1940, the first six human test subjects were given penicillin, the small amount of which had taken months of round-the-clock production to generate. The drug's potential was acknowledged. Production was then moved to the U.S. Initial efforts because of the war resulted in only enough penicillin by 1942 to treat a few hundred people. Choosing a different species of Penicillium to work with, irradiating it with X-rays and UV rays, and having several pharmaceutical companies grow the mold in large aerated metal tanks, the amount of penicillin increased rapidly in 1943. By the end of the war enough was available to treat seven million patients per year. (Meanwhile, sulfa drugs had been made part of every soldier's first aid pouch, the powder therein sprinkled on any open wound to prevent infection. Combat medics also carried sulfa tablets.) Penicillin and sulfa moved off the battlefield and into the general medical arsenal. Penicillin was and is one of the most active and safe antibacterials available. It and its closely related derivatives are very effective and have a large therapeutic index. The mortality rate for the three different types of community-acquired bacterial meningitis in the U.S. had by now dropped down to 10-40%. Fleming and two others would be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1945 for the discovery of penicillin. (See also 1913, 1985)]

[Also, in 1938 Dr. Charles Drew, a leading authority on mass transfusion and blood processing methods, set up a blood plasma system. Within a year he set up a blood bank at Columbia Medical Center. In 1940 he was chosen to organize the Blood for Britain project. This program collected, processed and transported 14,500 units of plasma within five months. Dr. Drew's scientific research helped revolutionize blood plasma transfusion so that pooled plasma could readily be given on the battlefield, which dramatically improved opportunities to save lives. In February 1941, Dr. Drew was appointed Director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank and he established the model for today's volunteer blood donation programs. By the time the program ended in September 1945, the American Red Cross had collected over 13 million units of blood and converted nearly all of it into plasma. At war's end, some 1.3 million plasma units were returned to the American Red Cross, which made them available to civilian hospitals.]

[Also during the war, amphetamines were used to help energize soldiers and industrial workers alike. (See also 1887)]

[There were 6,125 hospitals in the U.S. this year.]

[At the end of WWII, only 50 percent of patients survived burns involving 40 percent of their total body-surface area. (See also 1973, 1998)]

[1946 - February 26: The training base became Storage Depot 41, where thousands of airplanes -- many obsolete or in poor condition -- were to be rendered down into aluminum ingots. Kingman was one of five sites chosen for the task. In addition to B-17s, other airplanes brought into the base included B-24s, P-38s, B-26s, and A-26s. All told, some fifty-five hundred aircraft came to the area, eighty percent of which were heavy bombers. Craft in flyable condition were offered at cut-rate prices for civilian, military, or historical uses. The surplus war planes were lined up for ten miles along Route 66.]

[March: The musical roadmap "Route 66," written by Bobby Troup, was first recorded by Nat King Cole. The song includes the line "...Flagstaff, Arizona; don't forget Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino..." Other singers would cover the tune over the years. (Cole also recorded "The Christmas Song" -- "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." -- written by Mel Tormé and Robert Wells this year.)]

[April: Construction restarted on Davis Dam on the Colorado River. Until its completion in 1953 by the Utah Construction Company, it was a source of millions of dollars to the economies of and brought hundreds of workers to the areas of Kingman and the infant settlement of Bullhead City on the river. The dam formed Lake Mohave in the Lake Mead Recreation Area and submerged most of Bull's Head Rock, the old navigation landmark which was the city's namesake.]

[What is generally recognized as one of the first multicenter, randomized clinical trials (RCTs) was held this year to determine the effect of streptomycin in tuberculosis, thereby incorpoating the element of chance into a scientific clinical experiment. (See also 1943)]

[Arizona Medical Association House of Delegates authorized and set up the Arizona Blue Shield Medical Service Plan. ArMA provided the funds to assure a sound administration and the prompt payment of fees to participating physicians.]

[The first Mohave County Fair was held this year.]

[The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was organized this year under the mantle of the Department of the Interior to supercede the General Land Office and Grazing Service. The BLM began playing an increasingly prominent role in the lives of ranchers in the western U.S.]

Also this year, Dr. Arthur A. Arnold opened his office in Kingman. He had returned the previous year after serving in the South Pacific during WWII as a captain with the Army Medical Corps. There he was decorated with the Silver Star for valor in action and also received a Purple Heart. Dr. Arnold would be a member of the staff of MGH and also serve as its chief of surgery. He would briefly be associated with Dr. Marvin K. Paup, a surgeon who was in practice in Kingman for some sixteen years. Dr. Paup, also a partner of Dr. Walter Brazie, died at age 45 in November of 1946.

[1947 - February: The aircraft scrapping operation at Kingman got underway. The three eight-hour shifts per day provided employment for hundreds of workers. The monthly payroll exceeded $200,000, aiding the economy of Kingman immensely. Some 3 million gallons of aviation fuel which had arrived in the tanks of the aircraft was the major fuel source for the smelter furnaces which operated around the clock. The process of dismantling ferrous items from each aircraft and moving it to the smelters was time consuming and labor intensive. The reward was that each of the bombers, whether it be a B-17 or B-24 yielded approximately 10,000 pounds of pure, high grade aluminum which was in great demand at the time. In addition, mountains of rubber tires and inner tubes and rubber gasoline tanks had to be burned. "The smoke went as high as you could see, and it was big, like a volcano -- it was an awful thing to see." Various buildings on the site and equipment therein were put up for sale or bid over almost the next two years.]

April: The Swaskegame Post of the American Legion gave MGH a new incubator for low birth weight/premature babies. Within its first two weeks it just happened to be used to improve the lives of a WWII veteran's premature twins. All nurses working in the west wing of the hospital were trained in the operation of the incubator with an automatically controlled thermostat.

[At mid-month, penicillin was used for the first time in a civilian mass disaster when 800 patients were treated following a massive explosion in Texas City, TX. A combination of heated ammonium nitrate fertilizer and diesel fuel resulted in significant deaths, injuries and economic devastation. Ten operating teams worked in shirfts around the clock for 48 hours until all the emergency operations were completed. One thousand eight hundred eighty-eight 250-ml units of plasma were used within 4 hours after the explosion.]

[At month's end, Boulder Dam was renamed Hoover Dam in honor of former Pres. Herbert Hoover.]

May: MGH became a member of the Associated Hospital Service of Arziona and was now providing service benefits to Blue Cross subscribers in Mohave county and the adjacent territory served by the hospital. MGH was the fifteenth Arizona hospital to become associated with the Blue Cross plan, a voluntary, non-profit, statewide organization for the pre-payment of hospital bills. (Arizona Blue Cross at the time was one of 87 Blue Cross plans operating in the U.S. Earlier this year national membership was over 26 million, with Arizona membership at nearly 50,000.)

[Also this month, Dr. Broda O. Barnes of Kingman "told the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology at their Chicago meeting that migraine or severe headaches may be caused by swelling in the brain resulting in painful pressure against the rigid cranium. Dr. Barnes, reporting from experiences with an eight year study of 100 patients, said that one out of every 13 patients who come to doctors complain of headaches. 'Fatigue seems to play a dominant part in initiating headache,' he said. 'Fatigue may alter permeabilitiy and lead to accumulation of excessive extracellular fluids.'" His talk was circulated widely in a United Press report.]

[Because of long-distance telephone switching technology and the sheer amount of numbers in use in the U.S. and Canada, area codes were instituted this year. Thirty-five states had small enough populations that only a single 3-digit prefix was added to their phone numbers. All of Arizona received 602.]

[A 14-year boy was successfully defibrillated during cardiac surgery in Cleveland. Six previous patients had failed to respond to the defibrillator which was developed following experiments on animals.]

[The first successful human cadaveric renal allograft took place with the construction of the vascular anastomoses in the arm. Kidney function returned, the patient improved, and the transplant was removed on the third day.]

[August: The Nuremberg Code, the most important document in the history of the ethics of medical research, was formulated in Nuremberg, Germany, by American judges sitting in judgment of Nazi doctors accused of conducting murderous and torturous human experiments in the concentration camps. During the proceedings it was argued that nations such as France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and the United States had in their own way performed dangerous medical experiments on prisoners, often without their consent. This research was acknowledged to be wrong also, and the scope of the trial was broadened by defining the conditions under which risky human experimentation is ethically permissible. (The Nuremberg Code would not be officially adopted in its entirety as law by any nation or as ethics by any major medical association. Nonetheless, its influence on global human-rights law and medical ethics would be profound. Its basic requirement of informed consent would be universally adopted and the Code would serve as a blueprint for later principles that ensure the rights of subjects in medical research.)]

[1948 - March 31: Seventy million pounds of aluminum had been shipped out of the Kingman Storage Depot by the job's end during this year's first quarter. One task that did remain, however, was the gigantic clean-up of aircraft debris scattered over thousands of acres. Clean-up operations do not make money for a contractor and the result at Kingman was certainly evidence of that fact. (Even today, over 56 years later, there are plenty of fuel bladders, gasoline caps and numerous small aircraft parts which give mute testimony to what occurred there.)]

[July 1 : The U.S. Military now released the base for civilian use, and it became a property of Mohave County. Businessmen would start to develop an industrial park at the old military base. (Today it also serves as a thriving general aviation Kingman Airport and storage facility for commercial airliners.) Many of the civilian workers as well as a surprising number of servicemen and their families either remained or returned to become permanent residents of Kingman, the sleepy little western town starting to mature into a vital and progressive small city].

[The old TAT airfield was reopened after the war, but as the Mohave County Airport became the preferred facility, the TAT site eventually ceased to exist. By 1957 the terminal building would have become a large private residence, which can be seen to this day.]

[The American Heart Association reorganized this year to broaden its scope. It brought in non-medical volunteers with skills in business management, communication, public education, community organization, and fund raising. The small national staff in the New York City headquarters began to organize AHA divisions across the country.]

[The World Health Organization defined health as being not only the absence of disease and infirmity but also the presence of physical, mental, and social well-being.]

[Lidocaine, the first amide-type local anesthesia, was first marketed now, five years after it was developed. (Faster acting and longer lasting than procaine (novocaine), it would also find use in the treatment of ventricular cardiac arrhythmias and ventricular fibrillation.) (See also 1905)]

[Minnesota's 3M Company developed nonwoven fabric and the company's first healthcare product was introcued, a surgical drape. (The technology would be "spun-off" to produce surgical masks, many medical and surgical tapes, and various other products.)]

The starting salary for nurses at the MGH was now up to $100.00 every two weeks.

By this year, "[a]n enlightened [County] Board of Supervisors with some prodding by the American Legion agreed to keep their political paws out of hospital affairs. They appointed an Advisory Hospital Board from among our best citizens and left all hospital matters completely in their hands. The five practicing physicians in Kingman formed a hospital medical staff and held regular monthly meetings. Staff rules and hospital rules were discussed and formulated with the hospital manager sitting in at all meetings. We had a smooth running institution that was recognized through the state as a model. Other counties sent in men to find out how it was done. We were all proud of our hospital which was well on its way to become accredited."

1949 - January: "[T]wo new supervisors took office and in six short months had made nationwide headlines and a laughing stock of Mohave County. First they completely ignored the Hospital Board until one by one these people resigned in disgust. They dissolved the Hospital Medical Staff and said they would make their own hospital rules which they proceeded to do. As a result a new rule -- Famous III -- they forbid four out of the five doctors in the community, all members of the Mohave County Medical Society, the use of the hospital for their patients. It was a senseless action without precedence in the legal annals of the country."

[On January 9th, retired Dr. John Garretson Blackwell died at his home in Chloride at age 75. This surgeon had lived here for the past 37 years.]

[July: The executive secretary of the Arizona Medical Association visited Kingman at month's end "trying to stimulate an active local health council. He stated, apparently in Kingman, they have licked the rabies problem by getting the county board of supervisors to establish a pound and by bringing in a veterinarian. They have tackled such problems such as drinking water in the schools, fly menaces at open food stands and have gone out and actively campaigned for the arrival of the State Department of Health mobile X-ray unit getting 3,000 to turn out as opposed to an 800 turnout the previous year."]

A nursery and delivery room had been added to MGH in the forties, with the Utah Construction Company addition added to the inside patio (see also Apr. 1946).

[A 75 pound backpack that can record the ECG of the wearer and transmit the signal was developed by Montana physician Norman Jeff Holter. (His system, the Holter Monitor, would later be greatly reduced in size, combined with tape/digital recording and used to record ambulatory ECGs.) (See also 1928)]

[By this year, JAMA editor Morris Fishbein had become mired in multiple scandals, including his effective but unpopular obstruction of national health insurance at a time when doctors had become the richest professionals in the country and the Journal the most profitable publication in the world. Drug ads powered JAMA, but its biggest single advertiser in the 1940s was Phillip Morris. (Camel cigarettes had the largest booth at the AMA's 1948 convention, boasting in its ads that "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.") Shortly after the first of two back-to-back losses to a natural healer who Fishbein had been hounding, the AMA chief was deposed in a humiliating spectacle. He would continue, however, writing and editing elsewheres and a Morris Fishbein Center for the History of Science and Medicine would be established at the University of Chicago. (See also 1934, 1938, 1964)]

[The Arizona State Osteopathic Board of Registration and Examination in Medicine and Surgery was created in 1949. (It would be amended in 1970 as the Arizona Board of Osteopathic Examiners in Medicine and Surgery.)]

[The Arizona Academy of Family Physicians was formed as a non-profit professional membership organization representing allopathic and osteopathic physicians. AzAFP is dedicated to promoting the health of the people in Arizona, by representing and promoting the specialty of family practice and supporting its members in their professional development and service to the people of Arizona.]

[October: Radio station KGAN began broadcasting on frequency 1230 KC fourteen hours per day to bring radio directly to Kingman. (On Feb. 19, 1956 the station would sign off and sign back on as KAAA, call letters used to this day.)]

November: The Coconino County Superior Court ruled that the Board of Supervisors had the right to ban physicians from using the facilities of the Mohave County General Hospital.

MGH, c.1950

© Mohave Museum of History and Arts. Reprinted by permission.

[1950 - Mohave County pop.: 8,510 ; Kingman pop.: 3,342. There were 749,587 people in Arizona, and 151 million in the U.S.]

[The estimated life expectancy for persons born this year in America was 68.2 years (65.6 for males of all races, 71.1 for females of all races). The U.S. cesarean delivery rate was 4% of deliveries. The total infant mortality rate was 29.2 per 1,000 live births during the first year of life (20.5 of those occurred during the first month and 17.8 of those during the first week). The percentage of patient-physician encounters that were house calls was down to only 10%. (See also 1930, 1980)]

[An underpass was built to allow the majority population on the east side of the railroad tracks in Las Vegas to reach the Clark County General Hospital on the west side. Clark County's population this year 48,589 persons. (A few years later the name would be changed to Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital. The hospital now began to undertake a new mission -- keeping up-to-date with the latest development in medical technology and treatment and expanding its services to meet the needs of a rapidly growing and diverse community. Clark County's 1960 population would be 127,016 persons.) (See also 1931, 1940, 1968, 1978)]

"The four [disenfranchised] physicians with the support of the Arizona Medical Association brought suit against the Board of Supervisors and the Hospital Manager. The suit was appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court who decided in favor of the four physicians [this year]... But unrepairable damage had been done. One by one three of the four physicians left the community and it [would be] most difficult to attract new ones."

[The First March of Dimes Mothers' March was launched in Phoenix, Arizona, to raise emergency funding during a serious polio outbreak.]

[The 3M™ Scotch™ Surgical Drape was introduced.]

[By this year the number of medical specialties had grown to several dozen and the majority of students graduating from medical school were entering specialty residency programs. (See also 1913)]

[1951 - June: A very severe fire blazed in the Hualapai Mountains. The local ranch people were assisted by the National Guard and a group of Indians to bring the fire under control.]

[September: Dr. Paul V. Long moved his office from the Medical Building to the Masonic Temple.]

[Beginning this year and running into the 1980s, 129 above-ground and 804 underground nuclear tests would be conducted in the Nevada desert north of Las Vegas. School children in Kingman would watch the "bright yellow" flash of the distant mushroom clouds that then rose up and ignited the sky less than 150 miles away. "Pink dust" always came after the glow, clinging to sweaters and jackets and shoes of children who giggled with glee at such an unbelievable sight. (Some of the underground tests breached the surface and created their own atmospheric plumes.) Sometimes there were Geiger counters at the school doors, and the needle would swing wildly, and some kids were chosen to wear badges that measured radiation, but nobody was concerned. "The government said this was safe, that there was nothing to worry about." (Ten or more years later a variety of cancers would begin showing up in at least four generations of Kingman families -- and in other "Downwinders" elsewhere within a few hundred miles of the tests. One local family would lose at least 26 of 31 members to cancer.) (See also 2000)]

[This year, modifications to the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act enabled the FDA to differentiate drugs that could be sold over the counter from those that require a prescription.]

[BAND-AID® Brand Plastic Strips were introduced. (The adhesive bandages made in sheer vinyl would be produced seven years later.) (See also 1920, 2002)]

[1952 - With Davis Dam nearing completion (it would be dedicated on December 10), some of the younger war veterans in town wanted to improve Kingman. At the time there weren't many street lights and not very many sidewalks. The County Board of Supervisors suggested they form a city so bonds could be passed. Petitions were circulated and the County, in the meantime, did install 54 street lights. Although many of the older residents felt that the county could do things cheaper, an election was held and the majority of our citizens wanted to incorporate the city. The City of Kingman became official. (It became the first city to incorporate in Mohave County since Chloride had in 1900 -- but the latter then unincorporated in 1916. Kingman was also the last U.S. county seat to be incorporated.) A garbage truck was purchased and people were hired to operate it. All of the streets were paved and two improvement districts were formed.]

[Also this year, Route 66 bypassed the stretch of mountains around Oatman to be I-40 from Kingman, Arizona to Needles, California. Oatman and neighboring spots became real Ghost Towns.]

[March: Dr. Paul V. Long was program chairman of the Kingman Rotary Club and explained the organizational structure and activities of the Civil Air Patrol.]

[September: Dr. Long was seeking a fourth term as a member of the school board, District Number Four.]

[The nurse practice act in Arizona was rewritten to include the qualifications of Board members and the requirement to test Practical Nurses in the state. (See also 1921)]

[By as early as 1952, as much as three-fifths of all Staphylococcus bacterial infections were penicillin resistant. Staphylococcus aureus is a major pathogen that causes a range of diseases, including endocarditis, osteomyelitis, pneumonia, toxic-shock syndrome, food poisoning, carbuncles, and boils. Various steps were taken so as to continue the use of antibiotics, either with slightly different properties or in combination against the bacteria which would eventually recombine genetically to resist the effects of penicillin. Tetracycline (introduced this year) and other new antibiotics would be constantly sought for this reason, and many would themselves be derived from certain bacteria. (Tetracycline would be patented in 1955 and within just three years would become the most prescribed broad spectrum antibiotic in the U.S.) (See also 1945)]

[A Danish anesthesiologist did something that was routine for him in the operating room but had never before been done on a hospital ward. Dr. Ibsen saw a 12-year-old girl with paralytic poliomyelitis who was dying of respiratory failure in a tank ventilator. He intubated her trachea with a cuffed tube and administered positive-pressure ventilation with a bag he routinely used to provide anesthesia for thoracic surgery. She lived. (Many victoms of polio would be treated similarly in Copenhagen that year and at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston the next year. Teams of nurses and medical students would squeeze bags to keep patients with respiratory failure alive. The students would be replaced with machines, and patients would be brought to wards constructed for the purpose to receive skilled nursing and monitoring. Dr. Ibsen's simple act would start the explosion in medical technology that would lead to the development of intensive care units and the specialty of critical care medicine.) (See also 1953, 1960)]

[1953 - January: At end of month, a doctor and a nurse were sent up from Parker, AZ to give shots and medical attention to the Hualapai Indians who had the flu.]

[February: City health officials commenced an inspection of garbage cans in the Kingman city limits.]

[June: Tourist travel through Arizona broke all records during this month with 43,660 cars travelling eastbound through Kingman checking stations on highways 66 and 93.]

[Dr. Virginia Apgar's Newborn Scoring System was published this year, after four years of research. The "Apgar Score," as it is better known -- Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, and Respiration -- assesses the health of newborn infants. Up until that time, babies at birth were assumed to be in good health unless they exhibited some obvious difficulty or defect. Internal deficiencies could be missed, resulting all too often in death. Because Apgar realized that "Birth is the most hazardous time of life," she created a system for quickly and accurately assessing a baby's health in the crucial minutes after birth -- one and five minutes for vaginal deliveries, and fifteen minutes for babies born by cesarean scetion. A perfect score of 10 and 10 is rare in practice; but a score of at least 7 and 7 virtually guarantees a newborn's health. A lower score alerts obstreticians to the possibility of latent problems which can then, if necessary, be detected and treated on the spot. (As one famous physician would compliment:"Every baby born in a modern hospital anywhere in the world is looked at first through the eyes of Virginia Apgar.")]

[Measurement of PO₂ and partial pressure of carbon dioxide (PCO₂) in arterial blood proved to be more difficult than measurement (first done in 1919) of the oxygen saturation. lt was not until the introduction of Clark's platinum electrode this year that direct PO₂ measurement became routinely feasible. (Later a PCO₂ electrode would be developed, and by the 1960s blood gas electrodes would be commercially available.]

[Positive pressure artificial ventilation, gradually phased in after World War II, received great impetus during the 1953 Scandinavian polio epidemic when there were not enough iron lungs to go around. More than any other single event, this epidemic of paralytic polio demonstrated that positive pressure was easy to implement and every bit as effective, if not more so, than negative pressure ventilation. Even so, positive pressure ventilators were mostly confined to the operating room during the 1950s. (With the development throughout the 1960s of intensive care units, mechanical positive pressure ventilation would become a widely accepted technique. Today it is a standard therapy for severe respiratory failure in all hospitals.) (See also 1952, 1960)]

[1954 - January: Dr. Lyal E. Millett, a local chiropractor, was elected President of the Kingman Rotary Club.]

February 18: The regular monthly meeting of the Kingman Area, Arizona Federation of Licensed Practical Nurses was held at 8:00 pm in the nurses quarters of the Mohave General Hospital. Dr. Walter Brazie gave a very interesting and well received talk on the importance of nurses aides.

[June: Kingman surgeon, Dr. Francis M. Findlay, was named president of the Mohave County Chamber of Commerce for the fiscal year 1954-55.]

[September 2: Michael DeBakey of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston created, on his wife's sewing machine, a graft made of the synthetic material Dacron that was inserted this day for the first succsessful repair of an abdominal aorta aneurysm.]

[October: An advertisement for Desert Drug (3rd and Front St.) in the newspaper read “Ask your physician to phone Blue 100 when you need a medicine.”]

[November: An item in the newspaper read "After serving a precedent shattering two terms as president of the Arizona Hospital Association, [MGH administrator] Joseph A. Coppa is retiring."]

[The first mass-produced disposable glass syringe with needle was created this year, 101 years after the invention of the hypodermic syringe with its hollow pointed needle. It was developed for Dr. Salk. (The next two years would see a pair of patents for plastic disposable syringes.) (See also 1955)]

[The American Medical Association House of Delegates voted this year to support installation of lap belts in all automobiles. (Two years later, Ford and Chrysler would offer lap belts in front as an option on some models.) (See also 1934, 1965)]

[By the 1950s and 60s about 95% of women having babies in this country did so in hospitals.]

[A landmark court decision in Audrain County, MO made it illegal for public hospitals to deny staff membership and admitting privileges to qualified D.O.s (By the 1960s, most public hospitals would be open to osteopaths; by the 1980s most private hospitals would be open as well.)]

[December 23: A surgical team in Boston removed a kidney from a healthy donor and transplanted it into his identical twin, who was being sustained on a newly modified Kolff-Brigham artificial kidney machine. The organ functioned immediately and the recipient would survive for nine years. This operation was the first human kidney transplant without the problem of immune rejection. (The team had at least two years of successful kidney transplants with dogs in laboratories and a human who had had a human cadaver kidney transplant lived six months before the organ was rejected by the patient's immune system.) The team's lead surgeon, Dr. Joseph E. Murray, had gained extensive experience with burn patients who had been sent back to the States during WWII. His work with skin grafts raised the issues of immune rejection he would later find ways to address. He would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1990. (See also 1962, 1981)]

[1955 - The city changed the name of Front Street to Andy Devine Avenue in honor of the movie star who grew up in Kingman. (Born in Flagstaff in 1905, by his first birthday his family had moved to Kingman. Coincidentally, the 25-bed Flagstaff Hospital was donated to that community this year (1955), and later would be renamed Flagstaff Medical Center.]

[Dr. Jonas Salk had begun his medical research career studying immunology and in 1947, while at the University of Pittsburgh, he began his research on poliovirus. The following year, a team of researchers at Harvard discovered that using the relatively new wonder drug penicillin could prevent bacterial growth on the growth medium needed for mass culturing of the polio virus. In 1949 the March of Dimes selected Dr. Salk to lead research on classifying polio viruses. In 1952, he was the first to develop a successful vaccine using a mixture of the three types of virus, grown in monkey kidney cultures. He developed a process using formalin, a chemical that killed the polio virus but kept it intact enough to trigger the body's response. What followed was massive testing of the vaccine in clinical trials in t