Students, teachers and other staff at a federal Indian boarding school in the Kingman area pose for a photo around 1900. | University of Southern California DIGITAL LIBRARY, California Historical Society Collection
Painful Lessons
The only things my mother heard were the sounds of children’s cries, whimpers and soft footsteps as they fled into the night and she hid in fear beneath a thin, unfamiliar white blanket. Reduced to a…
The gas-powered riverboat Aztec passes through a movable bridge at Yuma in 1902. The Aztec moved cargo on the Colorado River between Yuma and Needles, California, until 1905, when a severe sandstorm caused it to wreck a few miles downstream from Needles. | THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY
Rollin' On The River
Behind the moored steamboat Gila, a bridge used by the Southern Pacific Railroad spans the Colorado River at Yuma in a photo from the late 1870s or early 1880s. In the…
Clyde Tombaugh peers through a 6-inch telescope at the University of Kansas, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees. This photo was made in 1936, six years after Tombaugh’s discovery of Pluto at Flagstaff’s Lowell Observatory. | New Mexico State University
Staring Into Space
Looking through a hand magnifier, Clyde Tombaugh could barely see the stars on the image in front of him at Flagstaff’s Lowell Observatory. “My hand was shaking,” he later told his biographer. “I was…
Described by some as eccentric, Wilhelm Smith had connections to many better-known figures in the history of the American Southwest. | SHARLOT HALL MUSEUM
She’s a Relative Unknown
Sedona’s newest park honors the city’s history, and one of the city’s oldest buildings is its focus. But just beyond the borders of Ranger Station Park on Brewer Road stands a reminder of a lesser-…
Michael Kotutwa Johnson, a Hopi farmer, and his dog gaze out over farmland in Northeastern Arizona.
Michael Kotutwa Johnson
Coming up through the Painted Desert from Flagstaff, we pull into the Kykotsmovi Village convenience store, where Michael Kotutwa Johnson greets us. He’s a faculty member at the University of Arizona…
Dinosaur tracks etched in stone lead to layered rock formations in the Painted Desert. By Tom Bean
Tom Bean: This Is My Story
Like many photographers, I got my start behind a camera while doing something else. In my case, after graduating from Iowa State University with a degree in wildlife biology, I worked as a seasonal…
Arizona Highways Policy on Generative AI
Arizona Highways does not publish words, images or other content created or edited, in whole or in part, by generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT. While we recognize that…
Toroweap Ranger Station, located near the Grand Canyon’s Toroweap Overlook on the North Rim, is one of the most remote postings in the National Park Service. The station’s buildings were built of local stone in 1935. By John Burcham
Fringe Benefits
Green after recent monsoon rains, Toroweap Valley spreads west, toward the Uinkaret Mountains. Rabbitbrush and sunflowers splash the remote expanse, more than 50 miles from the nearest pavement, with…