AA-2026-A7FAF0
On the image
A divided highway cuts through a snow-covered valley in what appears to be the American West, probably the 1950s or early 1960s, when such roads were still novel enough to photograph from a moving car. The landscape says high desert or intermountain region—ponderosa pines scattered across white ground, a substantial snow-capped peak to the left—the kind of terrain that promised Americans they could drive across their continent on a smooth, modern ribbon of concrete. Someone in the car aimed a camera at the road ahead, the guardrail edge, and the mountains beyond, not because the view was exceptional but because the road itself was the achievement worth documenting. The color film has faded to that particular turquoise-and-cream palette that marks early Kodachrome, a technology that made it suddenly possible for ordinary travellers to prove they had been somewhere, which may be the real reason the photograph exists at all.
Visually related — by likeness
Mountain Valley Highway, Mid-20th Century Winter. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-A7FAF0. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/mountain-valley-highway-mid-20th-century-winter.
@misc{aaAA2026A7FAF0,
title = {Mountain Valley Highway, Mid-20th Century Winter},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-A7FAF0},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/mountain-valley-highway-mid-20th-century-winter}
}TY - ART TI - Mountain Valley Highway, Mid-20th Century Winter PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-A7FAF0 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/mountain-valley-highway-mid-20th-century-winter ER -
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