AA-2026-7FD4A6
On the image
Someone climbed to this rimrock overlook — ponderosa pines at the foreground edge, a broad irrigated valley patchworked in wheat and pasture below — and decided this was the shot worth taking, which is what Americans did on road trips in the 1950s and 1960s whenever the view from a pull-off suggested they had driven somewhere significant. The valley below is the kind of place that only exists because of federal irrigation projects, the fields geometrically divided in a way that nature never managed on its own, each rectangle representing a different family's bet that the West would cooperate. A mesa or escarpment sits along the distant horizon, the kind of landmark that appears on regional tourism brochures under the heading 'scenic byway,' which is how the highway department made its peace with roads that went somewhere inconvenient. The whole scene carries the quiet confidence of mid-century agricultural expansion — the assumption, perfectly legible from up here, that the water would always come and the land would always produce, which turned out to be a more complicated proposition than it looked from the rimrock.
Visually related — by likeness
Agricultural Valley View from Elevated Rimrock, American West, Mid-20th Century. 1955–1970. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-7FD4A6. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/agricultural-valley-view-from-elevated-rimrock-american-west-mid-20th-century.
@misc{aaAA20267FD4A6,
title = {Agricultural Valley View from Elevated Rimrock, American West, Mid-20th Century},
year = {1955–1970},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-7FD4A6},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/agricultural-valley-view-from-elevated-rimrock-american-west-mid-20th-century}
}TY - ART TI - Agricultural Valley View from Elevated Rimrock, American West, Mid-20th Century PY - 1955–1970 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-7FD4A6 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/agricultural-valley-view-from-elevated-rimrock-american-west-mid-20th-century ER -
From the community
Identifications, corrections, and discussion from readers — reviewed by a librarian before appearing here.
Sign in to add an identification, correction, or comment.
No notes yet — be the first to add what you know about this image.