The archive, the stories, the connections
Roadside America invites you to explore a landscape of commercial imagination. You can follow a state, a year, a kind of building, or a single photograph that makes you stop. Each route leads back to the photographs and their original records.
The Library of Congress is our canonical source for the archive. Titles, dates, subjects, catalog notes, reproduction numbers and rights advisories are imported from its structured records. We retain the original wording, including incomplete or conflicting historical information.
Two kinds of knowledge
An archival record and an editorial story serve different purposes. The record documents the photograph. A story researches the place: what reliable sources establish, where accounts disagree, and what remains uncertain. We publish citations so you can follow that work yourself.
We do not infer opening dates, architects, demolition dates, coordinates or present-day conditions from a photograph. A place that looks abandoned in a picture is not automatically described as demolished today.
A source you can return to
Every photograph links to the Library of Congress. Images are displayed using its JPEG derivatives, while high-resolution originals remain available through the source record. We do not alter or colorize the archival photographs.
This site is an independent project. It is not operated, sponsored or endorsed by the Library of Congress.
Start somewhere unexpected
Explore the photographs ↗
Read the stories ↗
Read the rights and attribution information ↗