All back issues of the beautiful SCA Journal have been digitized and are now available for download. And members can download as many copies of as many back issues as they’d like ... for FREE! What a great reason to join!

By Douglas C. Towne – For Cinco de Mayo, the SCA celebrates in true roadside style with a classic article by Douglas Towne on the "turista" districts just south of the border.

FULL ARTICLE by Mary Ann Buckner – A vintage Five Faves documenting Mary Ann’s drive-by finds during a summer trip to photograph the lighthouses of Lake Michigan.

By Susan Bregman – New England is full of neon signs – you just have to look. I traveled back roads and main streets from the shores of Lake Champlain to the tip of Cape Cod to capture these vintage beauties for my book, New England Neon (Arcadia Publishing, 2018).

FULL ARTICLE by Kathleen Kelly Broomer – This is the story of Shoppers World, one of the nation's first regional shopping centers. This is also the first article published in the first issue of the SCA Journal, Fall-Winter 1994-1995.

FULL ARTICLE By Lyell Henry – Into the 1960s, guides, like the now-famous “Green Book,” were indispensable aids for thousands of black travelers. In this “SCA Journal Classic,” retired Mount Mercy College political science professor Lyell Henry discusses the history of “motoring while black” in the pre-Civil Rights era.

FULL ARTICLE by Douglas Towne – For most of the 20th century, the Near East captivated Americans, its influence extending coast to coast. Countless owners of motels, restaurants and nightclubs bet their economic futures that naming their business after elements of this region would bring success.

FULL ARTICLE by Michelle Begay – After World War II, the motel evolved into something not seen before in American life – a self-contained roadside oasis. The Foothills Motel complex exemplified the major shift in the middle-class pursuit of recreation and leisure.

By Lyell Henry – In spite of the depressed national economy, the late 1920s and the very early 1930s were good years for tourist camp start-ups. In this SCA classic article from 2013, Lyell Henry makes the case that the now forgotten Green Gable Cabin Camps came closer to the franchising practices that became commonplace after World War II than any other chain.