What the West was built on
Ghost towns, stamp mills, a false front on a main street, three-foot-gauge rails, a motel sign that no longer lights — the places where the past is still standing, and what happened there.
The communal kitchens that fed seven villages
For seventy-seven years the seven Amana villages ate three meals a day from common kitchens, and the whole common life turned on them.
Santa Fe in the Quiet Months
The galleries keep their own hours in January, the light goes long and gold, and the town belongs again to the people who live in it.
What the Wind Keeps at Bodie
In the high country east of the Sierra, a gold town from the 1870s still stands, held upright by wind, snow, and the policy of arrested decay.
The Boom That Built Rhyolite, Nevada
Shorty Harris and Ed Cross found gold in the Bullfrog Hills in 1904, and Rhyolite rose behind them — a city that lasted about ten years.
A Sod Wall on the North Dakota Prairie
Cut from the root-bound ground in strips and laid grass-side down, a sod wall is what a homestead on the North Dakota prairie was built of.
The Cabildo, Chartres Street, June 1936
A 1936 HABS photograph of the Cabildo shows its arcade, an American flag, and the cars of New Orleans.
In Moab, what the uranium boom left behind
A Cold War mining rush changed Moab, Utah, and its mill tailings stayed beside the Colorado River for decades.
The Wainwright Building Is the First Skyscraper That Looks Like One
The Wainwright Building in St. Louis gave the skyscraper its vertical face, and then nearly lost it to a parking lot.
The Coal Town That Came Back
When the railroads stopped burning coal, the New Mexico mining town of Madrid emptied out — until the people who loved it bought it back.
Walking Into the Dust
A farmer and his sons walk into a Cimarron County dust storm in Arthur Rothstein's April 1936 photograph — the frame keeps the rest of their story out.
Cars Standing Still on the Nebraska Prairie
North of Alliance, a man rebuilt an ancient monument out of old sedans, and the small town that kept it learned to live with wonder.
Let Bodie Fall Down Slowly
Bodie, California, is kept in arrested decay rather than reopened, and that choice has a strong argument and a strong counter.
The King of Roads
On the Oregon side of the Columbia Gorge, a hundred-year-old highway clings to the cliff, built for nothing but the view.
The 1915 Fordyce Bath, Room by Room
A bather at the Fordyce in 1915 passes from tub to steam to table in a set order.
Sun Keeps Time on the Walls of Chaco Canyon
A day at Chaco Canyon, where the sun keeps time on the walls of the ancient great houses.
Medora, at the Edge of the Badlands
A town of barely a hundred in the North Dakota badlands, where the frontier is re-enacted every summer and the wind never stops.
The Highest Incorporated City
At 10,152 feet, Leadville, Colorado, is more than a historic mining town—it is a place that demands something from the people who stay.
Deadwood and the Gold That Built It
In the Black Hills of South Dakota, a gulch full of dead timber became the wildest gold camp on the frontier.
The Middle of the Country Is a Field in Lebanon
In north-central Kansas, a small town sits at the exact midpoint of the forty-eight states.
The Relay at Simpson Springs
At a Utah Pony Express station, the handoff runs on dust, leather, and the timing of a horse's breathing.
Wallace and the Interstate Above It
In Idaho's Silver Valley, Wallace refused to let I-90 take its downtown, so the highway crosses above the town instead.
The Iron Menagerie of the Enchanted Highway
On the grasslands of southwestern North Dakota, a 32-mile road is lined with giant scrap-metal sculptures — one teacher's plan to keep his hometown on the map.
What Chinati Did to Marfa
In the high desert of West Texas, a minimalist art foundation turned a fading ranch town into a place the whole country drives to see.