Arizona at Its Best

Ever the quest was for the aesthetic side of a subject. A tad treacly as a writer, Carlson produced much of the text himself. He didn't hold back, as in this sample block of copy titled "The Year It Snowed." So the storm passed, and the world wore a cloak of white. The morning sun in a clear, cold sky turned snow crystals into glistening jewels. The cold breath of the storm could still be felt, challenging the Sun. It was as if the furnaces of the Sun had lost their fire, for there was no warmth in the bright light. The wind, which accompanied the storm during the night, left marks of its passing on the sculptured mounds and patterns of clean, white snow, a mantle of sparkling ermine which the Earth now wore with proud grace and beauty. To complement such sentiment, the magazine cultivated a cadre of the world's most talented photographers. Through the windows of Arizona Highways, Ansel Adams attained photographic immortality. He was but one. Carlos Elmer, Allen Reed, Norman Wallace, Esther Henderson, Josef Muench, Chuck Abbott, Ray Manley, Herb and Dorothy McLaughlin, and Joseph Miller vied with other top-flight photographers to supply Highways with superb images. A young adventurer named Barry Goldwater filled up the January, 1941, issue with his exposition and exposures from a delightful run by wooden rowboat down the Green and Colorado rivers through the Grand Canyon. Early on, Highways also illuminated its text with historic art (Remington and Russell) and original works by living, sometimes just beginning, Western artists. To-be Pulitzer-winner Bill Mauldin as a high school student had some of his first cartoons published in Highways. Oil painters Joe Beeler and Bill Ahrendt lent their fine art for illustrations. Maynard Dixon allowed his magnificent watercolors to be reproduced. Cowboy Ross Santee became a regular with his expressionistic burnt-matchstick monotone sketches. Pages of color were opened to painters Fred Kabotie (a Hopi) and Harrison Begay (a Navajo), who blazed trails for a following procession of Native American artists. But by far the watershed moment was the discovery of Ted DeGrazia, whose splashy, immensely appealing renditions of Indian babes, religious figures, and star-bright scenes decorated Highways' covers and articles for 40 years. DeGrazia became one of the most reproduced artists of the world, ever. Writers, too, gravitated to the emerging literary candle on the desert. Franklin Roosevelt, before the presidency, placed a piece. So did Ernie Pyle, before his martyrdom in World War II. Somehow Highways extracted submissions from playwright J.B. Priestly, jurist and naturalist W.O. Douglas, novelist Tony Hillerman, scholar Lawrence Clark Powell, romanticist Faith Baldwin, essayist Nancy Newhall, columnist Harry Golden, humorist Dick Wick Hall, critic Joseph Wood Krutch, novelist Irving S. Cobb, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and little fat movie sidekick Leo Carrillo. Highways printed the best of Arizona Poet Laureate Sharlot Hall and regional authors Frank Waters, Jonreed Lauritzen, Joseph Stocker, Wallace Stegner, Oren Arnold, David Lavender, Clara Lee Fraps Tanner, J. Frank Dobie, Jo Baeza, and Stewart Udall. And many, many more. Often overshadowed by the romance of literature and art, yet no less crucial, has been a consistently effective business management. Highways has not accepted paid advertising since 1939. Nor has it sought or received a state appropriation since 1982 try to make a list of government enterprises that consume no tax dollars! Today with an average press run of 400,000, three-fourths of the subscriptions go to the other 49 states and 120 countries. Key to the magazine's financial health is a storeful of related products: bound volumes and coffee table books, greeting cards and video tours, jewelry and souvenirs, guides and the official state map. Some 35 percent of the operation's revenue derives from products with an Arizona connection. Another economic strength is the magazine's veteran in-house fulfillment crew. The 63 Highways employees give tender, loving, computer-enhanced care to the needs and wants of subscribers and customers. Telephone Highways in this age of answering machines and voice mail, and you still reach a live human being. Maybe that's one reason after 70 years that Highways is still on the road, speeding along as slick and sensual and stylish as ever, going monthly into the hands of a million people of the far corners of the world. Will the life of this journalistic phenomenon go on? Probably it will, so long as Arizona Highways is supported by champions like my Uncle Bill Kretzer, who over many years helped build a global business by giving subscriptions to clients in many countries. Bill, who will soon be 87, in retirement does not buy green bananas, but he fully expects to reach 100. May that expectation come true for him, and for his favorite magazine. Editor's Note: The romance of Arizona Highways' past comes alive once again in the following pages, with a rich harvest of some of the most interesting, colorful, and curious stories of the Old Southwest ever to appear in the magazine. Please read on...