Museum building won’t move

Colorado River Museum building

By NEIL YOUNG
The Daily News

BULLHEAD CITY — At its meeting Tuesday, the Heritage Center Task Force has decided not to move the Colorado River Museum building to the Colorado River Heritage Center at Bullhead City Community Park, “at this point,” said chairwoman Lisa McCabe.

The Heritage Center consists of the head frame from the Moss Mine and the Lil’ Red Schoolhouse, which was recently moved from its Third Street location.

Potential problems with moving the museum building, which served as Bullhead City’s first Catholic Church, include the integrity of the building — whether it could survive a move — and having to clean up the site after moving the building per the Bureau of Land Management, which owns the land. The building itself is the property of Mohave County. The Board of Supervisors would have to approve any plans to move the building and transfer ownership, if required or desired.

Shawn Blackburn, Mohave County Parks director, said if the museum vacates the building, his department will find other uses for the facility, which borders Davis Camp, a county park.

Elsie Needles, Colorado River Historical Society and Museum president, said the current building doesn’t meet the needs of the museum.

“I want to see this museum move forward,” she said.

The task force is entertaining the idea of constructing a modular building in Community Park to serve as the new site of the museum. The modular design would allow for the museum to expand.

Roy Dean, owner of A-Arid State House Movers and Enterprises, moved the schoolhouse and participated in the meeting by phone from his Buckeye, Ariz., headquarters.

He said it would require “a lot of restoration to bring (the current building) up to code.”

Toward the end of Tuesday’s meeting, task force members discussed moving the General Store to Community Park. The 12-by 30-foot structure was relocated from Old Bullhead to the museum grounds in 1992. It served as a post office for a number of years and is said to be Bullhead City’s oldest building.

With $1,800 in the bank, the Task Force is a long way from accumulating the money needed for moving buildings or constructing new ones. Fundraising will be its focus, by selling commemorative bricks, seeking grants and corporate donations.

“There are a lot of groups in town that would help,” said Jim Zaborsky, owner of Village Construction.

The important thing is “to keep the train moving, get something going,” said Dick Whittington, Golden Vertex CEO and president, who — along with his wife Gillian — conceived the idea of a heritage center for Bullhead City.

Museum setting out to make history

Colorado River Historical Society and Museum President Elsie Needles, right, and Virginia Sutherland, CRHSM founding member and volunteer opened the doors to a new season on Tuesday.

By DK McDONALD
The Daily News

BULLHEAD CITY — The Colorado River Historical Society and Museum is making some history of their own.

“We’re so excited about this new season at the museum,” said Elsie Needles, CRHSM president. “Today is the museum’s opening day, we’re working on our 25th anniversary, and two phases of the Heritage Center have been completed. Moving the museum to the Heritage Center is next in the plan.”

The Colorado River Heritage Center at Bullhead Community Park is being created in four phases, Needles said. The first phase, the installation of the old Moss Mine Head Frame at Community Park was made possible through a partnership between Golden Vertex and the city of Bullhead City. Phase Two was completed in August when the 1947 Lil’ Red Schoolhouse was moved from its location near Lee Avenue and Third Street to Community Park. The building served as Bullhead City’s first school and will function as a museum of its own, complete with period displays.

Phase Three involves moving the Colorado River Museum to the complex, and the fourth phase plans the creation of a Heritage Center administration building.

“The head frame is done, the Lil’ Red Schoolhouse is moved — a ribbon cutting is scheduled for Sept. 26 in conjunction with the first Heritage Days celebration— and the museum is next,” Needles said.

A nonprofit operation of the historical society, the Colorado River Museum is housed in a building that once served as a Catholic church for workers who built Davis Dam in the 1940s and is placed in a corner of Davis Camp, just north of the Laughlin Bridge on Highway 68. Closed during June, July and August, the museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, September to May.

“I love volunteering here,” said Margo Dunkelman, who along with volunteer Glen Thompson works the museum on Tuesdays. “It’s very interesting and I’ve really enjoyed learning the history of Bullhead City. I used to volunteer somewhere else too, but this is much more fun.”

The Colorado River Historical Society formed in 1963 with two primary missions — the preservation of the area’s heritage and to open a history museum.

“The museum began with nothing,” said Virginia Sutherland, CRHSM founding member and long-time volunteer. “We had lots of support in the beginning from local business and were lucky enough to get some really interesting photos and artifacts.”

Museum displays tell of the Mojave Indians, the Katherine Gold Mine, the history of the Mohave Valley and Fort Mojave, memorabilia from Laughlin, the region’s ties to Louis L’amour and more. The museum has hours of historic video available to view and are working on new displays of local interest.

In the children’s room are wildlife displays and a historic dollhouse. Children are also given the opportunity to make a cornhusk doll.

“The event schedule is packed too,” said Karole Finkelstein, CRHSM vice president. “We have a slate of monthly speakers including Olivia Brasson-McCormick, historian Cheryl Mangin and Dennis Casebier of Goffs, Calif., founder of Friends of the Mojave Road. We have road tours of historic points and we’ll have a booth at the Heritage Days celebration. We over a very popular motor tour that starts at the museum and then goes on the road to about 15 historic locations in the area.

“We encourage anyone interested in learning more about the history of Bullhead City and the Mohave Valley to stop in. We ask for a $2 donation from adults and children are free.”

For more information about the motor tours, call Finkelstein at 928-219-2582. For more information about the museum, call 928-754-3399.

Going to school: Lil’ Red Schoolhouse begins two-day move

ON THE MOVE: Roy Dean, of A-Arid State Enterprises, Inc., in the orange safety vest, directs his son, Seth, at the wheel of a 26-wheel rig as the Lil’ Red Schoolhouse makes the turn onto Lee Avenue to begin its 11/2-block journey Tuesday morning. The 68-year-old school will travel another half-mile early this morning to its new home in Bullhead Community Park. (BILL McMILLEN/The Daily News)

By BILL McMILLEN
The Daily News

BULLHEAD CITY — The Lil’ Red Schoolhouse traveled a block and a half Tuesday morning, a prelude to its half-mile trek today to its new home in Bullhead Community Park.

“I’m giddy,” said Lisa McCabe, chief information officer of Golden Vertex, a local mining company overseeing the project to create the Colorado River Heritage Center at the park in northern Bullhead City.

She wasn’t the only one. Several dozen spectators — some who are working on the CRHC project and others just curious to see history in motion — clustered near the schoolhouse before it inched its way down Lee Avenue, from its longtime home near Third Street to an overnight resting place on a vacant lot off Highway 95 between First and Second.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” asked Roy Dean, of A-Arid State Enterprises, the company moving the schoolhouse. Dean directed the operation as his son, Seth, piloted the 26-wheeled Peterbilt rig slowly down the street.

“Home-moving is unique,” Roy Dean said. “Not everybody can do it. I grew up doing this.”
He said his father started the company; he joined the operation at the age of 12 and eventually took over. He said Seth likely will follow in his footsteps because “it’s in our family’s blood.”
Moving the schoolhouse the short distance appeared to be pretty easy for the A-Arid State crew.

“They’re all a challenge,” Roy Dean insisted. “They all have their idiosyncrasies, big or little.”
By building standards, the Lil’ Red Schoolhouse is relatively small. But that definition of “small” is a brick building weighing about 106,000 pounds. When loaded, the schoolhouse rig was 25 feet wide, 70 feet long and 21 feet high.

The height was an issue getting the schoolhouse out of its original location — the schoolhouse was built in 1947 and opened the next year as the first building for the Bullhead Elementary School District more than 35 years before the city was incorporated. A main cable line for Suddenlink Communications had to be taken down to allow the schoolhouse relocation to begin. Another Suddenlink line had to be taken down in the vacant lot to allow the rig to approach Highway 95. No other utility lines had to be removed, although crews from Mohave Electric Cooperative were on hand in case they were needed. Fortunately, the overhead power lines were well above the schoolhouse’s corrugated tin roof.

Dean said the schoolhouse wasn’t too eager to make the turn onto Lee Avenue at the beginning of its trip.

“Until you make the turn, you really don’t know how it’s going to respond,” he said, noting that the rig had to stop, dollies underneath had to be adjusted and the process had to go extremely slowly as the long load got headed the right direction.

“After that, it was pretty smooth sailing,” he said.

The moving process will resume early this morning when the rig creeps onto Highway 95 for the short trip to the main entrance at Community Park. Because it is traveling on a state highway, the entourage will be accompanied by Arizona Department of Transportation and Department of Public Safety vehicles. Highway 95 will be blocked for a short time — between 5:30 and 6 a.m., if all goes well.

The schoolhouse eventually will wind up in the grassy area at Community Park, where a concrete slab already has been poured.

“Of course, once the building is in its new home, there’s a ton of remaining work, at both the new location, as well as buttoning up the Third and Lee location,” McCabe said earlier. “That is currently being scheduled, with careful consideration of the 30,000 or so people expected to be in Community Park ... (for the Aug. 8 Bullhead City River Regatta).”

Plans for the Heritage Center, which already has the head frame from Moss Mine on site, also include the Colorado River Museum. Museum officials, Dean and Heritage Center planners have discusses options ranging from moving the existing museum from Davis Camp to building a new building to house the museum’s many exhibits, artifacts and historical documents.

The American Heroes Museum and other historic pieces of the Tri-state also could wind up in the Heritage Center.

Rolling to a new home: Historic Lil’ Red Schoolhouse moving to park next week

The Lil’ Red Schoolhouse is now on wheels and ready to move to its new location in the Colorado River Heritage Center at Bullhead Community Park. (NEIL YOUNG/The Daily News)

By NEIL YOUNG
Mohave Valley Daily News

BULLHEAD CITY — Next week, the historic Lil’ Red Schoolhouse will be moving from its Lee Avenue and Third Street location to the Colorado River Heritage Center at Bullhead Community Park. The building’s journey will take two days.

At 7 a.m. Tuesday, the schoolhouse will be moved from its original location to vacant lots on Lee Avenue between First and Second streets. The move could take anywhere between 15 minutes to an hour, said Lisa McCabe, Golden Vertex chief information officer, who is overseeing the heritage center project.

“Our number one priority to work closely with Suddenlink to make sure the disconnect of the overhead wire is as short of a time as possible,” she said.

The building will remain in the vacant lots until daybreak Wednesday, when it completes the final leg of its journey onto Highway 95 and to Community Park.

The Arizona Department of Transportation, Department of Public Safety and two pilot cars will meet where the building is parked.

“ADOT will conduct an inspection, and once they give the go ahead, the load will proceed 1,440 feet south on Highway 95 to the ‘launch ramp’ entrance of Community Park,” McCabe said.

After the schoolhouse travels down the highway at a speed of 2 to 3 mph, taking about 20 minutes, the anticipated arrival time in Community Park is between 5:30 and 6 a.m., she said.

“The load must go through some maneuvering in the chamber parking lot and the grassy area of the park,” McCabe said. It should be in place within an hour, she said.

It will take another five days to secure the building at its new site, McCabe said.

“Of course, once the building is in its new home, there’s a ton of remaining work, at both the new location, as well as buttoning up the Third and Lee location. That is currently being scheduled, with careful consideration of the 30,000 or so people expected to be in Community Park August 4-8 (for the Bullhead City River Regatta),” McCabe said.

When completed within two years, the heritage center will include the Colorado River Museum, the Moss Mine administration building and the American Heroes Museum.

“It’s a great time for Bullhead City,” she said.