Indeed we do.
Cal-Nev-Ari is 10 miles south of Searchlight on US95; it’s 70 miles south of Las Vegas and 20 miles northwest of Laughlin. It’s a hamlet of mobile homes and shade trees that stretches along both sides of the highway for nearly a mile.
Cal-Nev-Ari has one of the more unusual founding stories of any town in Nevada (and that’s saying something, since most of the towns and cities in Nevada have unusual stories). In 1965, Slim Kidwell, a flight instructor out of southern California, looked down from his airplane and saw an old World War II airstrip in the desert; it was used for flyers to practice landing and taking off.
Slim, 62 at that time, had a 28-year-old flying student named Nancy. He told her that he planned to move to the airstrip and found his own little community there; Nancy married Slim and joined him for the adventure.
They acquired 640 adjoining acres from the U.S. government and began developing the small airport-based community. They drilled for water, arranged for electricity, laid sewer lines, and built hangars for small airplanes. Then they subdivided and started selling plots of land; the first acre sold for $3,000 in 1966.
Today, upwards of 400 people, mostly retirees, populate Cal-Nev-Ari. They own the land on which their mobiles sit. The Kidwells own everything else (Slim died in 1983 at the age of 80, when Nancy was 43; 10 years, she married Slim’s son Ace, also a pilot).
Cal-Nev-Ari boasts an RV park and market, the 10-room Blue Sky Motel (complete with pool), the main building in town, the casino (24 machines), bar, and post office (which is open weekday afternoons), and a Clark County-built community center and four-bay volunteer fire house. The café has a nice sunroom and serves good road food. The motel rooms are huge and spotless (at least they were the last time we passed through and checked).
Nancy Kidwell, now 73, runs Cal-Nev-Ari pretty much single-handedly. But she’s winding down and wanting to retire, so she’s trying to sell the town, asking price $17 million. Included in the price are the casino and café, the RV park and market, the wells, sewer system, utility set-up, and 500 acres. You can see exactly what’s for sale, along with a few photographs, at www.calnevari.net. And if you’re interested in buying, you can call and talk to Nancy at the RV park at 702/297-1115 (the contact pages on the website are out of order).
