A Promise Fulfilled

When St. George Stake President J.D.T. McAllister prophesied that the day would come when one mile and a half of paved road would run right through Mesquite, Bishop Abbott and James E. Hughes saw the opportunity to bring the community of Mesquite together. For the prophecy to come true there had to be some preparatory work done. The road through Mesquite meandered from one house to another. There was no place for a straight road without changing land ownership. 

A town meeting was organized, and a presentation made showing where the new road would go through town. It showed which land boundaries would need to be adjusted and how the actual construction work would be accomplished by volunteer labor. The plan was accepted, and work began for a wide road with sidewalks on each side running east to west from Bishop Abbott’s home on the east end to Riverside Road on the west end.

When the road through Mesquite was constructed, the main river crossing to Bunkerville became where the bridge between Mesquite and Bunkerville now stands.

For some years after the road through Mesquite was established, travel along that road was horrible. The sand was so deep, wagons and the few automobiles traveling through had to be towed by horse teams to where they could gain traction again. Both the Abbott Wash and the Town Wash were so sandy and steep that farmers would spread their corn stalks and wheat straw across the washes so their wagons would not get stuck in the sand. Finally, the community of Mesquite hauled wagon loads of gravel from south of the river and covered the sand for easier travel. In 1940, an asphalt road was laid down with asphalt sidewalks and electric lights spaced for the first mile of the road beginning at the east end.

From Roads to a Freeway

After World War I ended, Lewis Pulsipher and Solon Huntsman were trying hard to convince the State of Nevada Highway Department to change the route of the road between Mesquite and Crystal, Nye County, Nevada. Pulsipher and Huntsman maintained that with automobile traffic becoming more reliable and faster, a better and shorter road should be established. They maintained that the road should leave Crystal heading directly east to Glendale, Nevada, then over the Mormon Mesa and up the north side of the Virgin River to Mesquite.

Pulsipher and Huntsman even went so far as to blaze a trail along the north side of the Virgin River from Mesquite to Toquop Wash, where they turned north up the wash to the Bunkerville/Mesquite dugway and the top of the Mormon Mesa and connected to the “Old California Trail” to Glendale.

This route unacceptable by bypassed Bunkerville, St. Thomas, Overton and Logandale. The State Highway Department rejected the route in part but did agree to a new route from Crystal to the Bunkerville end of the Mormon Mesa, where the road went down to the Virgin River at Riverside, Nevada. A new cement bridge was constructed across the river and a new road was cut through the gravel hills to Bunkerville.

In 1930, a hard surface gravel road was being maintained by the State of Nevada between Mesquite and Las Vegas, following the route from Crystal to the Bunkerville end of the Mormon Mesa. In 1935, this new road was designated US Highway 91 and went from Los Angeles, California to Butte, Montana.

After the end of World War II and the Korean war, the State of Nevada agreed to change the route of US Highway 91 from the east end of the Mormon Mesa along the north side of the Virgin River into Mesquite. In 1955, this new portion of US Highway 91 was opened and the town of Bunkerville was bypassed. Later, US Highway 91 became I-15, as it is today.

Arrowhead Trail

For years, Dudley Leavitt Sr held the government mail contract between Littlefield, Arizona and St. Thomas, Nevada. He helped as much as possible with the new road through Arizona. When he moved back to Bunkerville from Leavittville, his mail route between Bunkerville and St. Thomas was already being used as the main route of travel between these two communities. Each trip back and forth, Leavitt would take a pick and shovel with him and choose his resting places and overnight stays at a point work needed to be done on his road. Over the months, the road was established and quite well maintained.

By 1916, a new pile bridge had been constructed to cross the Virgin River at St. Thomas and between Bunkerville and Mesquite, Nevada.

In 1917, at the time World War I began, the newly named Arrowhead Trail was being followed from Los Angeles through Las Vegas, St. Thomas, Bunkerville, Mesquite, Nevada and Littlefield/Beaver Dam, Arizona and on to Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Arrowhead Trail was named by an automobile club out of Los Angeles. They were wealthy people adventurous enough to drive their automobiles from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City. They didn’t build any road or trail but just marked the main trails or roads they used as they traveled through.

At this time, the road from Las Vegas to St. George went east from Las Vegas to Apex, then across Dry Lake into Crystal, where it turned south to the Valley of Fire and east to St. Thomas, Nevada. From St. Thomas, the road followed Dudley Leavitt’s mail route to Bunkerville and Mesquite and then over the Abbott/Hughes Road to Littlefield/Beaver Dam and north over the Utah Slope to the Shivwit Indian Reservation settlement and then southeast into St. George, Utah.