This 1930 booklet advertising Arizona isn’t a photo book like the ones presented in the last few days, but it does have one thing in common with them: a small reproduction of the USA map that shows Southern Pacific’s main routes. Like the photo books, this booklet notes that people can get color copies of that map — such as the one shown with the Shasta Route photo book — by sending 25 cents to SP’s passenger traffic manager, who by the time of this booklet was publication was E.W. Clapp.

Click image to download a 11.9-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet from the David Rumsey Map Collection.

The booklet’s publication date was September 30, 1930, according to a printer code on the inside back cover, which also indicates a print run of 25,000 copies. Although not a photo book, this booklet does contain 19 crisp black-and-white photos, a centerfold map with cartoonish characters representing the kind of recreational opportunities people could expect to find in southern Arizona, plus the color painting by Maurice Logan, shown above, on the back cover.

The booklet is more thoughtfully designed than many I have seen. Each page has a one-line slogan at the top, all of which are different. For example, “A Wealth of Outdoor Recreation for the Vacationist,” “A Fascinating Region Where the Old West Still Lives,” and “There is Fun for All in a Southern Arizona Guest Ranch.”

The booklet contains brief descriptions of 27 guest ranches. Unlike most dude ranch booklets we have seen, these descriptions do not dominate this publication; in fact, they fill only a bit more than three of its 16 pages. Other pages describe historic and natural resources including cliff dwellings and Colossal Cave, a limestone cavern near Tucson.