Photographer Russell Olsen has spent years traveling the "Mother Road," taking pictures of the places that used to be. Using vintage Route 66 postcards and historic Route 66 photographs, Olsen bring the celebrated highway to life in a series of then and now pictures, each taken from the same spot. This fascinating exhibit, based on Olsen's books of the same name, is now on display at the Los Alamos Historical Museum through January. For more than three decades, Route 66 was America's main east-west artery, pointing the nation toward all the promise that California seemed to hold. To serve these hordes of travelers, Route 66 once boasted bustling commercial hubs, many of which remain today, many more of which crumbled or vanished long ago.

Much more than just a ribbon of crumbling asphalt, Route 66 today appeals to the world for its nostalgia value - for the promise that Steinbeck's "The Mother Road" once held and the places that stood alongside it. Motor courts, cafes, main streets, filling stations, and greasy spoons - all are represented in this exhibit featuring dozens of lost-and-found sites. It presents more than 40 locations along the Mother Road's entire 2,297 miles, showing them both during their heydays as seen in black-and-white photographs taken for period postcards from the 30s, 40s & 50s, and as they appear today from the same angle and also with black-and-white photographs.

Russell Olsen began exploring and photographing Route 66 in 1995 while driving from his brother's home in Chicago to his home in Los Angeles. On his first trip down America's Main Street, Olsen unexpectedly shot 27 rolls of film. Annual road trips followed and in 1998 Olsen set out on this project, shortly after he began collecting mid-century postcards depicting classic stops along Route 66. Born and raised in South Chicago, Illinois, Olsen lives in North Hollywood, California.