Roadside Rest Shelters: Destinations All Their Own
This rest area stands against the desert backdrop near Abiquiu, New Mexico.
Think back to your last road trip. Where did you stop for a bite to eat? What scenery did you study when you paused to stretch your legs?
Before options like drive-thrus and commercial travel centers made road travel a little more convenient, small roadside rest areas, many of which were built as part of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, were a driver’s only option.
On a drive from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas, in 2007, photographer Ryann Ford took notice of these rest shelters. “As a photographer, it’s hard not to notice them,” she says. “They’re perfect minimalist structures set on a perfect landscape. And they’re each different in their own way.”
For the last seven years, Ford has traveled the country documenting rest shelters along highways and in state and national parks.
“I think they tell the story of a different time,” she says. “Now, we’re so rushed with our travel. We just want to get from point A to point B really quickly, whether it’s by plane or jumping on the fastest highway and getting there as fast as possible. If you eat, it’s through a drive-thru. [These rest shelters] tell the story of a different era in travel, when it was about the journey.”
You can explore Ford’s full collection of photographs in her book, The Last Stop: Vanishing Relics of the American Roadside published by powerHouse Books. You can also see a sampling of her photos in the Summer 2015 issue of Preservation.
We’ve shared a few more of her images here. Do you have memories of roadside rest areas like these? Share them with editorial@savingplaces.org.
Located outside Post, Texas, this rest shelter was constructed sometime between 1957 and 1959.
This brick shelter can be found near Clines Corners, New Mexico, where Interstate 40 meets U.S. Route 285.
Visitors to Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park in northern Arizona can find a shaded place to sit at this simple shelter.
Frequent road closures for missile testing operations near White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico led to the creation of the San Augustin Pass pull-out. The 41-foot-tall Nike Hercules Missile has been a roadside landmark at this rest area since the early 1960s.
This small rest shelter at Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona was built in the early 1960s as part of the National Park Service’s Mission 66 program, an initiative launched in 1956 to expand visitor services at national parks in time for the agency’s 50th anniversary in 1966. The Painted Desert Community Complex in the park is a National Treasure of the National Trust.
For those driving near Pojoaque, New Mexico, this roadside shelter can be found off U.S. 84/285.
