Arguably Arizona’s most recognizable corporate brand, U-Haul celebrated its 80th year of DIY trailer and truck rental by moving to new headquarters on Central Avenue.
“Nobody moves because it’s fun,” Stuart Shoen says. “They’re either going someplace better or fleeing a bad place.”
The U-Haul International executive vice president – and grandson of the company’s founder, L.S. Shoen – says the latter was imprinted on him long ago on a visit to a Canadian U-Haul dealer on a frigid winter night.
“Near closing time, a distraught woman came in, saw me in my U-Haul shirt, and said she needed a trailer and had this much money to spend,” he says. Shoen tried to determine how much stuff she had to size the load, but she repeated that the amount was all she had, and that the move needed to occur pronto because of an abusive situation.
“I told the store we had to help her,” he says. “It gave me a clear picture of who our customer was and what we could do. We’re here to help people who really need it.”
Agency and self-empowerment were the catalysts for U-Haul’s founding in 1945. Before the 1950s, those unable to afford professional movers for interstate moves were limited to what they could jam into their vehicles. Iconic images of Dust Bowl migrants underscored this reality during the Great Depression, with chairs and suitcases strapped to top-heavy, overloaded cars, as parodied in the 1960s sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies.
This reality changed after World War II, in part thanks to L.S. Shoen, a discharged U.S. Navy veteran. He and his wife, Anna Mary Carty Shoen, were returning home to Portland, Oregon, after his last assignment in Southern California. Moving companies were too expensive, and trailer rentals were reserved for local moves, forcing the couple to take only what fit in their 1937 Ford.
“On that trip north, my grandparents dealt with their frustrations by conceiving of U-Haul,” Shoen says. “My grandfather had been on track to be a doctor before getting kicked out of medical school, but this business idea of one-way trailer rentals consumed them.”
U-Haul might not have been a success, however, without the goodwill of its customers, in an early example of the power of crowdsourcing.
Soon after their trip home, the Shoens offered the first U-Haul 4-by-7-foot open trailer for rent in the summer of 1945. By year’s end, the company had a fleet of 30 trailers that could be rented “here” and left “there” in the Northwest for $2 per day. U-Haul “rental agents” were typically mom-and-pop service stations that provided space to park the trailers and received a commission on each lease.
But the fledgling company was battling two other trailer rental competitors, Nationwide and National, and needed to quickly recruit dealers across the country. U-Haul turned to its customers for help to capitalize on the country’s postwar migration boom.
“In return for a discount on a rental, U-Haul would send customers off with a packet to drop off with the trailer at a service station at their destination that included a letter which read, ‘Congratulations! You’re the newest U-Haul dealer,’” Shoen says. “Amazingly, a bunch of strangers honored this commitment, and as a result, the U.S. has a mobility that most other countries lack.”
The audacious plan succeeded, and by the 1950s, U-Haul one-way trailer rentals covered most of the country. The company’s fleet owner program, which allowed purchasers to acquire 30 or more trailers for use within the U-Haul fleet system, spurred growth. The company had 42,600 trailers by decade’s end. The company’s rental trucks debuted in 1959, providing additional moving options.
In 1967, U-Haul moved its headquarters from Portland to Phoenix, influenced by several factors, including L.S. Shoen’s asthma. Fittingly, the company did a DIY move. “My grandfather was thrifty,” Shoen says. “He was famous for eating at McDonald’s twice a day on trips, and he idolized their production line approach to service, delivering a high and consistent standard.”
The company hit a rough patch, starting with the oil crisis of the 1970s, which put many service stations that were U-Haul affiliates out of business. This era was marked by sometimes-ugly disputes among L.S. Shoen’s blended family of 13 children, all of whom were company shareholders. His first wife, Anna Mary, died in 1957, and he remarried four times. L.S. Shoen was 70 when he was forced into retirement in 1986, and he died in 1999 after crashing his car into a telephone pole near his home in Las Vegas – deemed a suicide by the Clark County coroner.
The over-diversified company got back on track by refocusing on its strengths, led by L.S. Shoen’s third-oldest son, Joe Shoen.
“In 1987, there were zero U-Haul trucks with automatic transmissions, air-conditioning or power windows,” Stuart Shoen says. His uncle, Mark Shoen, had the idea to rejuvenate the company by buying 1,000 new white trucks and putting iconic landmarks on their sides. The Supergraphics series began with South Dakota’s Mt. Rushmore and New York’s Statue of Liberty.
Arizona followed, and its Supergraphic had quite the provenance. “Growing up in Phoenix, our neighbor was the late Ed Mell, who at the time was a struggling artist,” Shoen says. “We later reached out to Ed, and he created an image of two saguaros, with the silhouette of an eagle flying through them. It was the only Supergraphic done by a renowned artist.”
As U-Haul celebrated its 80th anniversary in 2025, the company moved its headquarters from the twin 11-story Central Towers to the former CenturyLink Tower across Central Avenue in Midtown Phoenix (see below).
Reflecting on U-Haul’s rise from a bunch of secondhand trailers to a vast fleet of trucks, trailers and self-storage facilities that dominate the DIY moving industry, Shoen says, “It’s easy to attribute the company’s wild success to one person or family, but it needs to go to thousands of employees and millions of customers – so many people had a hand in it.”
Central Avenue Highlife
A trio of midcentury towers in Midtown Phoenix.
Phoenix Financial Center
This $7.3 million project, designed by Peruvian architect W.A. Sarmiento, opened at 3443 N. Central Avenue in 1964. Its circles, arcs and parabolas formed two rotundas and a 10-story tower, nicknamed the “Punch Card Building” for its slotted, narrow windows. In 1972, an eight-story addition was completed atop the tower. In 2025, plans were announced to convert the high-rise into an urban resort called the Recess Hotel & Club.
Phoenix Towers
High-rise residential living in Arizona began when this cooperative apartment building opened at 2201 N. Central Avenue in 1957. The $3 million, 14-story, X-shaped building with a pink-block exterior façade was designed by Chicago architect Ralph C. Harris, who described it as a collection of modern ranch homes, grouped on a vertical plane. Two of the four wings were larger, creating the illusion of two separate towers. Each of the 60 units was provided with two spaces in the first underground residential parking garage built in the Southwest.
Regency on Central
The 21-story, 118-unit residential building, designed by local architect George H. Schoneberger Jr., at 2323 N. Central Avenue, was initially called Royal Towers. After an ownership change, the $4 million high-rise was renamed Regency House. “The Regency House Concerto,” composed by Dr. Grant Fletcher, music professor at Arizona State University, was performed at the VIP opening in 1966. Soon afterward, the building became known as the “Governor’s Mansion” when Arizona’s then-chief executive, Jack Williams, moved in.
