Sixtieth Anniversary: 1925-1985

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Few peoples of Spaceship Earth are as self-critical as Americans in their treatment of the land. Yet, in truth, Americans have shown the way for the rest of the world in establishing preserves for nature and parks for people. Today some 1200 national parks and equivalent refuges are established in a hundred countries. This great system began with a revolutionary impulse-in America. At a rendezvous of mountain men and other Western trailblazers the sentiment grew for reserving Yellowstone "as a public park and pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people." In 1872 that idea became law.

President Theodore Roosevelt, more so than any other leader of his time, exercised powers directly derived from the American people. In speaking to a conference of the governors of the United States in 1908, Roosevelt thundered: "With the rise of peoples from savagery to civilization, and with the consequent growth in the extent and variety of the needs of the average man, there comes a steadily increasing growth of the amount demanded by this average man from the actual resources of the country. And yet, rather curiously, at the same time that there comes that increase in what the average man demands from the resources, he is apt to grow to lose the sense of his dependence upon nature. He lives in big cities. He deals in industries that do not bring him in close touch with nature. He does not realize the demands he is making upon nature.... We have become great in a material sense because of the lavish use of our resources, and we have just reason to be proud of our growth. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils shall have been still further impoverished and washed into streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields, and obstructing navigation. These questions do not relate only to the next century or the next generation. One distinguishing characteristic of really civilized men is foresight; we have to, as a nation, exercise foresight for this nation in the future; and if we do not exercise that forsight, dark will be the future!"

In this month's issue of Arizona Highways Magazine a talented team of writers, photographers, and artists takes us to a region which C. Gregory Crampton called Standing Up Country, a monumental corner which Richard E. Klink dubbed Land of Room Enough and Time Enough, and vast vistas which inspired Clare Booth Luce to coin, Land of the Long Eyes. Around the point shared by four Western states, we of the last decades of the twentieth century are heirs and caretakers of a grand circle of eroded rock amphitheaters, towering monoliths, gaping canyons, frozen lava flows, and timbered plateaus. Many of these crown jewels of the American outdoors are safeguarded and interpreted by the National Park Service. Although American performance regarding the environment has not been perfect, citizens of the world may enjoy the product of American origin: parks for the people. - Don Dedera The Canyon King paddle wheeler (LEFT) calls Wahweap Marina on Lake Powell home port. The Lake, Monument Valley, (BELOW) and Cliff Palace, (BOTTOM, LEFT) are part of this month's Grand Circle Adventure, page 2. (BOTTOM, RIGHT) Wyatt Earp. This never-beforepublished 1928 photo was the last made just before bis death. Wyatt "rides again" in Glendon Swarthout's new book Old Colts, excerpted on page 31.

(WRAPAROUND COVER) Sunset Storm, by Ed Mell, 36 by 84inches, oil on canvas. Reduced to meet cover proportions, a full reproduction of Mell's fine work appears with a profile of the artist on page 41. (INSIDE FRONT COVER) Incredible views along this month's Grand Circle Tour include (CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP, LEFT) Bright Angel Point, North Rim, Grand Canyon; LaGorce Arch, Lake Powell; limestone spires, Bryce Canyon National Park; the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gage Railroad.