The Desert Magazine June 1949

Randall Henderson founded The Desert Magazine in Palm Desert, California in 1937. Though Henderson passed away in 1977, the magazine ran until 1985. Like the longer running and more famous Arizona Highways, The Desert focused on matters of interest throughout the southwest, such as history, culture and lifestyle, naturalism, geology, and conservation. You can find more issues of The Desert on Scribd. It looks like someone made an abortive attempt to revive the magazine,  but didn't get to far. See here or here. It's a great magazine, so good luck to the fellow who'd like to bring it back.

The Desert is actually fairly expensive on E-bay, but I got this one fairly cheaply because the cover is in lousy condition. Still, it's all there and I thought I'd highlight some of the cool stuff in this 60-year-old issue. The photograph on the cover is of a desert sparrow hawk and the photographer was Robert Leatherman. It's sitting on a cactus skeleton of some sort.

Among the articles are a piece about the Salton Sea in California, one of the southwest's most epic failure of planned living, and this article on petroglyphs in New Mexico.

It think Hard Rock Shorty is kind of funny, even though the joke is about the desert being a hot place. It's kind of in the old hyperbolic tall tale style and I appreciate that.

This was one lucky dude. The Desert ran short news pieces of interest like this from other publications in the back near the classifieds.

Click here to enlarge the photo and read the poems.

 If anyone wants to take the quiz, leave your answers in the comments. The magazine included the answers, and I'll post the correct answers if anyone takes it.