OUR WORLD HEADQUARTERS

IN THE 1950s, we moved from cramped quarters in downtown Phoenix to a citadel of our own on the western edge of Encanto Park. Because we have subscribers in more than 100 countries around the globe, we refer to our home as “our world headquarters.” And so it is. This is where we carry on the legacy of our venerable triumvirate: Raymond Carlson, George Avey and Jim Stevens. They’re the heroes of our story — the Three Musketeers; Harry, Ron and Hermione; the father, the son and the holy ghost.

As editor, art director and business manager (today he’d be called a publisher), those three men designed and built a phenomenon. Never in the history of publishing has there been a magazine quite like Arizona Highways. Like Gatorade, Frisbees and Ferris wheels, it’s an idiosyncrasy — a magazine so unique it was banned in the Soviet Union because its beautiful pages “propagandized the American way of life.”

This month, our magazine is celebrating 95 years of showcasing the people, places and things that make Arizona unique, from its spectacular landscapes and colorful history to its fascinating culture and endless adventure. But it isn’t always easy.
 

In July 1963, in a piece he titled The Story of Arizona Highways, Mr. Carlson explained why: “I have been editor of Arizona Highways since 1938. In the spring of that year, after my third or fourth issue, I was confronted with the awful and terrifying realization that we were running out of material. Now, twenty-five years later, I am confronted with the still more awful and still more terrifying realization of how inadequate we have been in telling the Arizona Story, how much of that story remains to be told. The Arizona Story has no beginning or end. It is the story of a great and a breathtakingly beautiful land, a big land full of sun and distance, so complex in personality no person will ever know all of it. It is a story of a great people, people proud of Arizona’s past, people part of the dynamic present, people envisioning a still more dynamic future. That is the Arizona Story we have tried in our own poor way to tell in the past. That is the Arizona Story, so formidable and awesome, we will try to better tell in the future.”

I have a reverence for Raymond Carlson that’s undeniable. He had a gut feeling about things that maybe only an editor of this magazine can understand. I am not Mr. Carlson — to equate myself would be like Gary Busey pretending to be Daniel Day-Lewis — but I can relate to the pressure he felt about adequately telling the “Arizona Story.” There are so many stories to tell. We can’t tell them all, but we’ll keep on trying. We’ll see you in May, with a few more.