OST’s Centennial Celebration Association is a group established five years ago to coordinate the revitalization and preservation of the Old Spanish Trail’s historic sites. The website announces an open invitation to “anyone loving the open road.” The sentiment of America’s fixation of mobility, freedom, and romance of the open road appears to remain etched in the minds and hearts of those living along the highway of the southern borderlands and beyond. The romance centered around the Old Spanish Trail is not unique in its historical origins to expand its link between the east and west but can easily represent countless other highways in its pursuit to produce a fast and inexpensive mode of transportation. As cities grapple with the challenges of public transportation and the consequential impacts of western expansions “unexpected byproducts” and “unintended landscapes,” it is critical to revisit the landscape’s history “not as spectators” but as humans “belonging to the land.”

The project takes a close look at the cultural geography, physical evolution, and development patterns of the Old Spanish Trail (OST) along the Texas/Louisiana border to the New Mexico state line. Although sections of the original roadway and its context have been erased and homogenized by Interstate Highway 10, other parts tell a more nuanced story, with patterns that change, like the landscape itself, from east to west.  The project’s aim is to explore this as a geographical and cultural phenomenon, using archival and present-day records of changes along its route, following in the footsteps of J. B. Jackson, Ed Ruscha, and Lee Friedlander.