Dennis Chandler is a collector — of Arizona history, specifically. "You name it — if it's Arizona and collectable, I collect it," he says.

So, of all the places to find a copy of Arizona Highways'  long-lost December 1930 issue, Chandler's collection was a pretty good bet.

"My next-door neighbor listens to NPR all the time," he says. "We were chatting, and she said, 'I know you have Arizona Highways, and they're looking for a December 1930 issue.' I said, 'I think I have that one!'"

We're lucky he did. Arizona Highways is in the process of digitizing every old issue of the magazine for archival purposes, including the publicly available archive at the Arizona Memory Project. But none of our collections had that issue from 1930, leading us to wonder if the magazine had skipped a month during the Great Depression. After we got the word out about our search, the Phoenix NPR affiliate produced the report heard by Chandler's neighbor.

Chandler, an Avondale resident, has a collection of more than 3,000 Arizona history books, including bound volumes of our magazine from 1937 and later. He got this issue as part of a purchase from Mike Riley, the owner of Book Gallery in Phoenix. "He called me up and told me, 'I just made a purchase you may be interested in,'" Chandler says.

Chandler likes to tell people he's been in the Phoenix area "since October" before clarifying that he means October 1946. That month, he came to Arizona on a Greyhound bus with his mother and brother. They joined his father, a disabled World War II veteran who had moved here from Missouri for heatlh reasons. Chandler is a veteran himself, having served 12 years in the Navy, including time in Vietnam with the Marines. He then worked for the U.S. Postal Service for 34 years before retiring in 2004.

After the December 1930 issue is scanned, we'll return it to Chandler, who's still working on his history book collection. He also collects Arizona license plates, but only from the year 1936. He's found them for every county but Greenlee; he recently tried to get one on eBay but was outbid at the last minute. So, if you've got a 1936 Greenlee County license plate kicking around, get in touch with us and we'll connect you with him. It's the least we can do as thanks for solving our 87-year-old mystery.

"I'm a strong proponent of the kids learning Arizona history," Chandler says. "Anything I can do to perpetuate that, I'm all for."

— Noah Austin, Associate Editor