Road Trip: Roadside America, From Custard's Last Stand to the Wigwam Restaurant

by Richard W. Longstreth

A loving tribute to American roadside and advertising architecture from a lifelong enthusiast with a unique collection of photography.
With a focus on vernacular roadside architecture built between 1920 and the late 1960s, Road Trip is a time capsule of an extraordinary era and its roadside buildings, restaurants, gas stations, motels, and places of amusement, most of which are now long since gone.

Genres: Photography, Travel, Architecture, History

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2015

Reviews

[Sheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Photos from the 1970's showcasing the old-school interesting roadside architecture that broke up the monotony of a long road trip. The coverage is limited in range, but the representations convey the design and scheme and bring to mind examples from your own travels. These unique buildings were cool in their own way, and you can still see examples, or the vestiges, of the architectural style yet today, although they are quietly being replaced with modern facilities. Gimmicky, at times kitschy, but a fun look back in time at ingenuity and individuality.

[audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading this for the 2nd time in the 24 hours I've had the book in my possession and I'm still sitting here like, WHAT JUST HAPPENED.

The first time through I couldn't really read the book, by which I mean the words, because the photos were so overwhelming, so all-consuming and thought-provoking; there's a photo of a junction in Oregon from 1971 where I flat-out yelled, and it was only the fact of it being nearly 1am that saved my beloved B from getting a text.

The second time through was no easier, but I managed the words this time.

Let me start over: This is a collection of photos the author took on late 1960s/early 1970s road trips across the United States, and the author (much like this reader) loves architecture. Not just wacky woo-hoo architecture; there are precious few photos of buildings shaped like fruit, food or animals (although the Former Ox Hickory Fired Beef House with the terrified bull forming the front door gave me pause) in favor of photos of the raw beautiful of 1960s American architecture. Some of it was brutal Modernist, it's true, but even Modernism can be beautiful, thirty years on, and maybe that's what makes the book so powerful.

It's fun to guess where the photos were taken, and as a longtime resident/itinerant traveler of California, amazing to look at these photos and ask WHAT JUST HAPPENED.

The chapter on gas stations. The one on motels. The photo of the abandoned Stanley Cafe and Gas in Stanley Corners, South Dakota where the glowering sky makes up eighty percent of the photo. The Muffler Man holding a hot dog in Chicago. The foundered steamship hotel trapped in snow west of Bedford, Pennsylvania advertising free telescope / souvenirs / post-cards / soft drinks ("SEE 3 STATES and 7 COUNTIES"). The places I've passed by that I only recognize by reading the captions. The places I wish I'd been. The places I've been in dreams.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED.

This book captures the time and places where this country could build strange things out of fiberglass and use them for whimsical capitalist purposes. When it was important to reconstruct a British castle in the form of a service station in Glen Elder, Kansas. When it made perfect sense to turn an old cruise liner into a furniture store. When why wouldn't you put a genuine military airplane on top of a gas station in Milwaukee, Oregon?

It's four stars because I've read it twice already and will probably read it one more time before it goes back to the library.

It's not five stars because I quibble with the way some of the photos were laid out in the book: most are centered mid-page and set off with white space but quite a few are full-page bleeds across a centerfold and in at least one instance this layout misses the point entirely. The photo is of an Esso off Route 50, west of Ocean City, Maryland, and 60% of it is dying lawn and encroaching dark trees; trapped in the staple are the actual subjects of the photo, three men, one young, one old, one older still, looking over at the camera with varying degrees of hostility that seem to pertain to their ages.

Towards the end of the book the photographer just captured stucco and smog, and even I, architecture and US history nerd that I am had to fight the urge to skim.

Which may be WHAT JUST HAPPENED.

So much sun, so much sky, so many quaint cars. Some of the photos just aren't very good, snapped as they obviously were from the roadside at buildings set shyly well back from the road and braced by lawn and tarmac. I've just never liked drive-ins. At least one photo I'm convinced is a secret portal to another dimension and I might just tape the pages shut for everyone's good before I return the book to the library.

There was a time when it was important to lay tiles in a cafe's front facade so they mimicked steam rising from a coffeepot that surrounds the door. A time when it was important to carve leather-crack grooves in the two-story fiberglass cowboy boots at the Hat n' Boots gas station by the side of Route 59 in Ottawa, Kansas. When it was important to get the creases in the Muffler Man's jeans just right.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go pack.

[Matthew Hundley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I grew up in a family that took road trips. I have fond memories through the 70's and 80's of visiting large swaths of this great land of ours anxious for what kind of sites we'd come across. My parents didn't shy from interesting landmarks along the way. So the motels we stayed at, burger joints we ate at, filling stations we gassed up at were in line with those presented in this book. My grandparents too were road trippers and my grandmother always came back with stacks of postcards from all the places they'd stop: motels, greasy spoons, taverns, hodge podge museums, tourist traps, drugstores and anywhere else that fancied to paste it's effigy on cardstock. So for me "Road Trip" drudged up fond memories. These are the places that you find abandoned and decayed in our day. But once upon a time they were the highlights of our trips. Thanks for packaging this up and serving up a reminder for the next generation.

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

So fun. I loved looking at the photographs of places that--much to my dismay--no longer exist. There was a photo of the a junction in Junction City my parents took when we traveled up Oregon to the coast, took all day since it was pre-I-5.

If you are a baby boomer, you will love this book.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't get as much from this as Oddmonster but it was a fun ride down memory lane of my childhood road trips.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's like going through a scholarly photo album of the author's journeys and reminisces, very heavy on the early 1970's and along several highway corridors (i.e. US-1 in Virginia, several roadways in Kansas and Texas). The text mostly introduces each segment of the book and could have been deeper, but it works as a coffee-table book and for deeper exploration of the topics and styles covered.

[Jacob Blanck · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.45 Stars -- Good coverage on road trips but it doesn't cover any of these places in my region. I'm guessing a photographer who took quite a lot of those places was a little too far to get to my region there. Overall, a pretty good book! Guess I'd inspire myself looking at road trips my own way.

[Lisa K · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, an architectural historian, took most of the photos in the 1970s, which increases the appeal of this mostly-pictures book. Text introducing each form -- gas stations, diners, motels -- gave me nothing new, but it useful, quick reading for someone new to the topic.

[Sandybear76 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely photos, writing was ok and it was very small print.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Photographs of various gas stations, motels, roadside restaurants, etc taken in the 1970’s that embody the idea of a road trip

[LynnG]

Not what I was looking for, more of a coffee table photo book... Not a guide book at all.