TIME LIFE allan grant

Road Trip! Photos From US Route 30 in 1948

As summer approaches and the urge to hit the highways -- and the byways, and the back roads -- begins to take hold, LIFE offers a series of pictures from Nebraska and Wyoming made seven long decades ago.

In the summer of 1948, LIFE photographer Allan Grant set out on a trip from Omaha, Neb., toward Salt Lake City, Utah, traveling west through Nebraska and Wyoming along one of the most storied stretches in America: Route 30, part of the early transcontinental Lincoln Highway.

For reasons lost to time, none of Grant’s marvelous photos from that epic post-war road trip were ever published in LIFE. Here, as summer approaches and the urge to hit the highways — and the byways, and the back roads — begins to take hold, LIFE offers a whole series of Grant’s pictures from Nebraska and Wyoming made seven long decades ago, in tribute to the innate human desire to get up and go.

[MORE: “The Road Goes on Forever: Route 66 and the American Dream”]

[MORE: An unbelievably tricked-out ’47 Cadillac]

Route 30 Nebraska, USA, 1948. Route 30, Wyoming, USA, 1948. Route 30, USA, 1948. Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, Nebraska, USA, 1948. Family sleeping outside by a billboard alongside Route 30, Wyoming, 1948. Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene after driver fell asleep at the wheel on Route 30, Nebraska, 1948. Motel along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, Nebraska, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948. Cars pulling out of trailer camp onto Route 30, Nebraska, 1948. The 1733 Dance Hall -- reportedly 1,733 miles from both Boston and San Francisco -- in Kearney, Neb., 1948. Driver filling a water bag at a gas station alongside Route 30, 1948. Scene along Route 30, Nebraska, USA, 1948. A couple and their five-month-old daughter head back home to Cheyenne, Wyo., after a visit to Omaha, Neb., 1948. Motor lodge along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948. Scene along Route 30, Nebraska, USA, 1948. Motor lodge along Route 30, USA, 1948.

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