Road Trip! Photos From US Route 30 in 1948

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Written By: Ben Cosgrove, Liz Ronk

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]

LIFE photographer Allan Grant clowns around during an assignment along Route 30, 1948.
Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Route 30 Nebraska, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Route 30, Wyoming, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, Nebraska, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Family sleeping outside by a billboard alongside Route 30, Wyoming, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene after driver fell asleep at the wheel on Route 30, Nebraska, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Motel along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, Nebraska, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Cars pulling out of trailer camp onto Route 30, Nebraska, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

The 1733 Dance Hall -- reportedly 1,733 miles from both Boston and San Francisco -- in Kearney, Neb., 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Driver filling a water bag at a gas station alongside Route 30, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, Nebraska, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

A couple and their five-month-old daughter head back home to Cheyenne, Wyo., after a visit to Omaha, Neb., 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Motor lodge along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Scene along Route 30, Nebraska, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Motor lodge along Route 30, USA, 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Charles Corwin White, bicycling from Los Angeles to New York and speaking along the way on "Americanism" and citizen participation in a democracy. Here he's photographed west of Rawlins, Wyo., in 1948.

Route 30 1948

Allan Grant The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

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