Dr. Patrick’s Postcard Roadside

For every Yellowstone there is a West Yellowstone, a “Gateway Town” of tourist services and diversions that is the commercial opposite of the natural splendor preserved within the boundaries of an adjacent national park.

This 1940s postcard suggests Toffenetti’s 1,000-seat “Cathedral of All Restaurants” was synonymous with New York and New York with Toffenetti’s, which was largely true to Times Square visitors of the Postwar era.

It was a challenge to affix Main Street signage to pre-Modern buildings because the architecture got in the way.

Cedar Hedges Cabins outside Searsport, Maine, was one of many cabin courts operating along US 1 in the 1930s.

The automobile rediscovered long-distance roads forgotten since the rise of the railroads, and then reshaped them to suit their purpose.

Southern Belles and Bathing Beauties dress up a giant map of Florida made from grapefruits and oranges for tourists on the electric boat tour at Cypress Gardens.

Hot food from a coin-operated slot in the wall? Cheap. Automatic. Modern. And so 1902.

After crossing the Eastern Continental Divide in Highlands, North Carolina, US 64 drops down the west slope of the Blue Ridge via Cullasaja Gorge passing a series of waterfalls including Bridal Veil Falls.

The Georgian Revival hotel block was a symbol that a small, mid-American city growing since becoming a railroad junction in the 1880s or 1890s had by the 1920s achieved the status of someplace among the galaxy of other towns on the prairie.

Howard Patrick and Norman Marsh combined their names and opened El Segundo, California’s Patmars Drive-in at Imperial Highway & Sepulveda Boulevard in 1939.

Downtowners, Rowntowners and five stories of breeze block in Danville, Virginia!

This circa 1930 postcard of Husted Cabins on US 40 between Marshall and Clark Center, Illinois, captures a time during the early auto age when farmers lucky enough to be on a major trunk route reaped a windfall of auto-oriented commerce.