Editorials

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Published in the Interest of Good Roads by the ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS TOURIST SERVICE A VITAL NECESSITY

Many service stations and garages are not providing the touring information that visitors to our state are entitled to. The Twelfth legislature will be asked to appropriate $150,000 to advertise the state nationally, yet hundreds of service station operators are woefully ignorant relative to highway and scenic questions. If we are to make the most of the sum to be expended to bring new tourists and settlers to our state we must educate ourselves in the vernacular of the wellinformed travel director.

The writer picked two large Phoenix service stations at random to ask two questions: “How do I get to Oak Creek Canyon?” and “How is the highway to Douglas?” Attendants scurried for highway maps, spent five minutes finding the points in question and then engaged among themselves in a bitter argument over how to reach Oak Creek and whether the road was paved the entire route from Phoenix to Douglas.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS is anxious to lend its support to an organized school of travel information. The responsibility lies with the big oil companies and to them we pledge our co-operation in the organization of periodic classes under the leadership of men and women trained to answer questions asked by the traveling public.

Fortunately, the Arizona Highway Patrol is trained along these lines. Border patrol stations are doing much to guide the unseasoned Arizona traveler. Hundreds of cars whose destination is elsewhere are caused to tarry among our scenic attractions when told the proper routes and what may be seen.

Every garage man, every hotel and restaurant proprietor, and every filling station attendant should have on hand a quantity of highway maps which may be secured free of charge from the Highway department. Maps of our National Parks and Monuments may be secured either from Washington or from the various Parks and Monuments.

OUR COVER PICTURE

The picture is the work of Norman G. Wallace. It is a striking study of Mission San Jose De Tumacacori, located 49 miles south of Tucson and 19 miles north of Nogales. It is the subject of the story in this issue dealing with the creation of a museum at the monument. Interesting Tumacacori was founded by the Jesuit priest, missionary, and explorer, Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, about 1691.

LIFTING THE MYSTERIOUS VEIL

To those readers who enjoy stories of the dim past this issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS will offer a distinct appeal. Your attention is directed to “An Arizona Trail to Yesterday,” “The Lost Mine of the Stars,” and “Tumacacori, Priestly Monument.” The writers have succeeded in brushing aside that mysterious veil which divides the present from the dim and distant past. They have done so, in some cases, at the risk of life and in all cases after much research and toil.