One of the ways I got much of my information was following the “Thank You” links, sometimes the “thankyou thankyou thankyou” links. All these people know each other. Someday I hope they’ll know me. However, some of the links were to sites that no longer existed.
Some of these are sites still up on the internet. Some have multiple lives, starting out on free websites provided by services that no longer provide those services (Geocities) or personal pages at your ISP, and moving on to their own domain. Others…Well, I gotta say I’m very happy there’s the Wayback Machine. There are a few that have vanished altogether, mostly due to the robots.txt file saying “don’t look here, don’t copy our files”. And some are still on Angelfire/Tripod, and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
If there isn’t a notation “Last updated”, it means the site is fairly current, with “last updated” dates of 2013 and 2014. And in a couple of cases, 2015. I use each site’s “what’s new” or “latest update” pages to give an approximate date. Notations like via Wayback Machine means the original site no longer exists, and some, sometimes all, of the data is only found on the Wayback Machine. In a couple of cases, I’ve found the data again, on its own website, and have changed notations accordingly. So if you have additional info, pass it on, pleeze.
I make no judgement as to the value of the data, only that data exists. Old data is still useful data. If this wasn’t so, the marvelous digitized pictures and maps and everything else you can find via the Library of Congress website wouldn’t be so marvelous. There are pics out there on roadgeek sites of bridges that have been replaced, interchanges that have been interchanged with something far more complex, data about roads that used to multiplex and now don’t, or vice versa.
Our highway history resides on every roadgeek website, new or old. As with all such things road, some part or another is having repair work done.
Regional Roads Sites, or Sites With Lots Of Random Bits Worth Of Notice
- Magnolia Meanderings, primarily Mississippi, but also some stuff for other southern states.
- Floodgap Roadgap, a truly eclectic collection of road geekery, with a good amount of data on Maine roads
- Granite Highways, New England Bridges, Highways, Trains
- Greater New York Roads, covering New York, New England, and Middle Atlantic Roads
- Millenium Highway, Mostly Kentucky, but some pics and data from surrounding states.
- Delmarva Highways, State of Delaware, along with the Eastern Shores of Maryland and Virginia – via Wayback Machine
- Highway Intersection Project: “As of June 14, 2014, I’ve photographed some intersections in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Missouri.”
- Bygone Byways Highway 80, the Bankhead Highway and Broadway of America and more including historic Route 66 and scenic Highways 99 & 101. Icons of America’s unique roadside culture.
- Alaska Roads — Last update 2007
- Arizona Roads — Last update 2008
- California Highways
- Historic California Highways — Last update 1998
- Historical Highways of Central and Southern California
- Highway Page — Formerly DLK’s Highway Page
- The Unofficial Georgia Highways Web Page — Last update 2005
affiliated blog, The Georgia Road Geek Blog is current - Coastal Georgia Roads
- Indiana Highway Ends/highwayexplorer.com
- Indiana Ends—via Wayback
- Chris Marysz’s Indiana Highways—via Geocities clones
- Illinois Highway Ends/highwayexplorer.com
- Illinois Highway Page
- Iowa Highway Ends
- The Iowa Highways Page
- Bits and pieces from Neil Bratneys Iowa Page—via Wayback Machine
- Floodgap Roadgap, a truly eclectic collection of road geekery, with a good amount of data on Maine roads
- Magnolia Meanderings, primarily Mississippi, but also some stuff for other southern states.
- Highways Of Washington—Warning: Angelfire site.
FORMER GEOCITIES.COM, NOW GEOCITIES.WS or OOCITIES.ORG
When Geocities shut down, a couple of groups gathered a lot of the material and mirrored them on Geocities.ws and Oocities.org. Not everything made it, but if you’re looking for a site that used to be on Geocities.com, try these other two.
ANGELFIRE, TRIPOD, and other annoying “FREE” websites WARNING! Angelfire and Tripod websites have a gazillion ads, popups, and annoying things that get in the way of reading the text. If you click on the little “x” to close an ad, you’ll get a popup ad, or pop-behind ad. Recently, I’ve been getting YOUR COMPUTER HAS BEEN INFECTED, which is a scam.
The Wayback Machine is the ghods gift to the forgetful, or for those whose free personal pages from their ISPs have gone bye-bye, or for those whose lives have moved on. Altho given the amount of detail on some of these pages, I can’t see a roadgeek putting this much effort into something and then walking away. (I say that as two projects of mine have died the death of “enough”!)
After the third set of roadgeek pages I found on the Wayback Machine, I gave them a nice donation.