January 10, 1983. Prehistoric Native American petroglyphs and pictographs, unlike the subjects in most of the photographs in this book, are not usually found along roads but in the open landscape or along trails. They are most often on south-facing rocks or cliff walls, many times at locations with views or at the junction of two rivers. This petroglyph, probably more than 1,000 years old, has been described as a “jaguar with a rattlesnake tail” on an information kiosk at the Three Rivers petroglyph site in Lincoln County, New Mexico. It commands a view of the Oscura Mountains and, beyond them, the Jornada del Muerto and Trinity Site, where the world’s first nuclear explosion occurred on July 16, 1945.
June 18, 1983. Contemporary U.S. 163 with two highway artifacts from previous versions of the highway. This view looks west toward Mexican Hat, Utah, which is a few miles away. When I revisited this spot in 2013, the two older highway fragments had completely disappeared with no traces visible. They were, literally, “marks on the land,” unintentional earth works, that proved to be ephemeral.
July 12, 1982. Las Vegas, New Mexico, is famously located where the Great Plains run up against the Rocky Mountains. The Fort Union Drive-in Movie Theater is located on the eastern edge of town near the old Santa Fe Trail, and this view looks east, past the big, white rectangle toward the High Plains prairie. The Fort Union is one of two active drive-in movie theaters left in the state of New Mexico and was still open when I went through in the summer of 2016.
July 21, 2007. This photograph contains another double landscape on a sign along U.S. 491 on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation south of Cortez, Colorado, a magical landscape painted in silhouette with Ute Mountain floating in the sky above teepees. The problem with plywood signs outdoors is that they don’t weather well. But, as a result, they become more interesting as they age, acquiring character and a history. What does last? Unique motel signs made of neon and metal don’t either. Drive-in movie theaters don’t. Prehistoric Native American petroglyphs hand pecked into stone with simple tools, however, have done pretty well, especially in the dry Southwest. Many are several thousand years old.
July 19. 2007. The North Fork Motel is on U.S. 93 in the town of North Fork, Idaho, next to the North Fork of the Salmon River. Lewis and Clark passed this spot on their way west in 1805, after crossing Lemhi Pass and before going over the Lost Trail Pass about thirty miles to the north. This is a 1940s style, pre-franchise sign with a name and design that relate to the local area in Idaho.
May 22, 1981. The AA “MODERN” Motel with “CAMPING” sits next to railroad tracks and U.S. 6 in Holdrege, Nebraska, which is located slightly east of the 100th meridian in central Nebraska, the line of demarcation for the West. The problem with using “modern” on a sign is that it is hard for the motel to keep up with the word. When I made this photograph I was on my way to Antigo, Wisconsin, to learn to bend neon.
December 31, 1980. It seems obvious that these two motel signs, for The Bel Air Motel and Bel Shore Motel, on the same stretch of U.S. 70 in Deming, New Mexico, were constructed by the same sign shop, which crammed word information in a stacked form onto a sign. Although Deming has been bypassed by Interstate 10, these motels survived into the early 1980s.
July 1990. The Blue Swallow Motel is located on U.S. 66 (aka Route 66) and survives in another one of my gateway towns, Tucumcari. It is the classic sign and motel by which all other Route 66 motels, from Chicago to Los Angeles, should be, and are, compared. Lillian Redman, the owner of the Blue Swallow who was in her 80s when I made this photograph, turned the motel’s office into a veritable museum of things Blue Swallow and Route 66. Her husband once made a painting of a blue swallow that was used as the template for the neon swallow; the painting is prominently displayed in the motel’s office. Lillian has died, but the Blue Swallow lives on in all of its glory, with a new series of owners who have taken pride in and maintained the sign and motel.
December 18, 1980. The Grand View Motel is on the very north end of Raton, New Mexico,on U.S. 87; the Capri Motel is nearby. Both motels are close to the old Santa Fe Trail on the southern side of Raton Pass. The star above the Capri is on Goat Hill, which is lit up around Christmas, is surrounded on three sides by the town of Raton.
January 8, 1981. This lonesome, now-abandoned motel in the panhandle of Texas is about forty miles west of the Oklahoma border in Hedley, Texas, along U.S. 287. When I first passed by in 1980,it had no name or, at least, no sign to identify it. When I saw it again in September 2015, it appeared to have been closed for many years, still standing with the fragile neon tubes under the eaves intact but probably unlit for decades. I often revisit and sometimes photograph places that I have seen before, as a way of connecting two different times through one place.
November 3, 1985. The Bordertown Drive-in Theater pictured at right, was on U.S. 59 in Laredo, Texas, a few miles from the Mexican border. It had a mural very similar to that of the Bordertown Drive-in Theater, which was on U.S. 62 and 180, a few miles from the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas. Laredo Air Force Base was nearby and Fort Bliss was near the Bordertown in El Paso, which might explain the twin jets bracketing the bull.
January 9, 1981. The screen side of the Prairie Drive-in Theater along U.S. 287 in Dumas, Texas, has a three-dimensional white rectangle.
January 2, 1981. A row of metal chairs for a close-up view of a drive-in theater screen on U.S. 90 on the southern side of Van Horn in West Texas.
September 9, 2006. This radio tower is located on New Mexico 104 in eastern New Mexico between Trujillo and Las Vegas.
March 15, 2009. This radio tower sits on the outskirts of Tulia, Texas.
