Carol M. Highsmith’s photograph Rural scene, South Dakota is striking because there is so little in it.
A lone tree stands in a broad sweep of golden prairie beneath a huge blue sky. A fence crosses the foreground, quietly reminding us that this is not untouched wilderness, but a working rural landscape shaped by people.
The tree is small.
The prairie is large.
The sky is larger still.
That scale defines the Great Plains. In a country like this, a single tree can become a landmark, and something as simple as a fence can tell us a great deal about how people have used and divided the land.
Highsmith made the photograph on September 16, 2009, but the scene feels almost timeless.
The full article takes a closer look at what this simple South Dakota landscape tells us about the prairie, rural America, and the quiet documentary power of an ordinary photograph.
A Lone Tree on the South Dakota Prairie
Along old Route 66 in Holbrook, Arizona, fifteen white teepee-shaped motel rooms still stand around a gravel courtyard, surrounded by vintage automobiles and memories of the highway’s golden age.
The Wigwam Motel, officially Wigwam Village No. 6, opened in 1950. Chester Lewis brought the idea to Holbrook after seeing one of Frank Redford’s unusual Wigwam Villages in Kentucky. The buildings were designed to do exactly what successful roadside businesses did then: catch the eye of passing motorists and give them a reason to stop.
For decades, Route 66 brought travelers directly past the motel. Then Interstate 40 bypassed downtown Holbrook, and the old roadside economy changed almost overnight. The motel eventually closed, but the Lewis family later restored and reopened it.
Today, it remains one of only three surviving Wigwam Villages in the country and one of the most recognizable remnants of old Route 66.
The full story is about much more than a novelty motel. It is about the rise of automobile tourism, the businesses built around the old highways, and what happened when the Interstate system changed the way Americans traveled.
Read the full story: Wigwam Motel: Sleeping in a Piece of Route 66 History
For more than 120 years, Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain was part of everyday life in Orange, California.
People went there for prescriptions, hamburgers, coffee, malts, ice cream sodas—and conversation. It became the kind of place where generations crossed paths, regulars had favorite stools, and a simple drugstore gradually became part of the town’s identity.
Watson’s opened under Kellar Watson in 1899, added its soda fountain in 1915, survived enormous changes in American retail and community life, and eventually became familiar enough to serve as a Hollywood filming location.
It finally closed in 2022 after 123 years.
I’ve put together a fuller look at Watson’s history, from its early drugstore years through its soda fountain era, movie appearances, ownership changes, and final closing.
Read the full story: Watson Drugs and Soda Fountain: Where a California Town Gathered for More Than a Century.
Carol M. Highsmith’s photograph Rural scene, South Dakota is striking because there is so little in it.
