Roadside motels, rusty signs, truss bridges, abandoned gas stations and desert landscapes along California’s stretch of Route 66 are beloved by a certain type of visitor. And also by a certain type of photographer.
Michael Graves, a vintage car enthusiast, is also a Route 66 enthusiast. A show of his photography, “End of the Trail: Route 66 Through California,” serves as a tour of the Mother Road from Needles to Santa Monica.
I attended the opening reception Saturday at Claremont Heritage’s Memorial Park offices. I know the show is car-focused, but I got there on foot.
Although L.A. County is represented in the show, the bulk of it is about San Bernardino County. Many scenes are from the desert. And why not? It’s picturesque.
Desert sites include the 66 Motel in Needles, an abandoned garage in Ludlow, Emma Jean’s Holland Burger Cafe in Victorville, the ruins of Poe’s Cafe in Newberry Springs and three shots from Barstow: the depot, a truss bridge and the El Rancho Motel — more on that in a minute.
Naturally, the Bagdad Cafe in Newberry Springs is there. So is Roy’s Cafe and Service Station in Amboy. No show on Route 66 in California would be complete without them.
All the photos are in moody black-and-white except for the shot of Roy’s and its neon boomerang sign, which Graves printed in color at the urging of friend Wendy Slatkin. “She was right,” he said.
Graves has had a long career in commercial and industrial photography while also taking fine-art photos for pleasure.
I asked about the road’s allure for him.
“I’ve always liked the nostalgia of Route 66, the mystique of Route 66,” Graves mused. It’s been one of his subjects since 2015, when he shot a Route 66 roadway emblem in Newberry Springs.
Some of the spots are closer to home for the Ontario man: a neon sign in Rialto for Ned’s Oil & Stuff (love the name), the Wigwam Motel in San Bernardino and, in Fontana, the Red Hill Coffee Shop, Sand and Sage Motel and a Texaco station.
Rancho Cucamonga is represented by the Magic Lamp Inn, the Richfield service station that’s now a museum and the small stretch of original macadam pavement that, after a realignment, is part of a small park.
In Los Angeles County, Santa Monica’s “End of the Trail” sign, a downtown L.A. tunnel, Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco Bridge and Monrovia’s Aztec Hotel, Alta Dena Dairy and Flying A Service Station are depicted.
So is Wolfe’s Market, which is in Claremont, only three blocks from Memorial Park. You could make a field trip there before or after checking out the exhibit.
Graves had a small show of this work at Ontario’s Chaffey Community Museum of Art earlier this year, curated by Slatkin. I saw that, admired it and wrote a paragraph about it. But what with one thing or another, I didn’t manage to get it into a column prior to the show’s end. It happens.
(In fact, I bumped a long item about citrus crate labels from the end of Wednesday’s column, and again from this one, for space and flow reasons. Well, it’ll show up soon enough. Probably.)
David Shearer saw that CCMA show too. The executive director of Claremont Heritage, Shearer was there to see the main gallery exhibit, which was devoted to the work of John and David Svenson. Graves, who is active with the museum, happened to be present.
As Graves recounted it, Shearer said he liked the 18 photos and offered to show them in Claremont — but he needed 36. Graves gulped, said yes and got to work shooting more. Most of the photos are dated 2026.
“I love them,” Shearer said. “I like the care that he took in getting the right exposure and in staging some of them with a vintage car.”
Route 66’s centennial — the road got its name in 1926 — has prompted other efforts by Claremont Heritage. The road, locally Foothill Boulevard, traverses the city.
Claremont-focused events have included a recent car show and, last Sunday, a Route 66 presentation by Auto Club historian Morgan P. Yates, a Claremont resident. (I meant to attend but forgot. D’oh!) An architecture tour is planned for Oct. 10.
Heritage also got a grant from the California Preservation Foundation to study the impact of Latinos on Route 66 in Claremont, primarily the use of the road to ferry tourists to see the Mexican Players troupe at Padua Hills Theatre.
“End of the Trail” is up only through Aug. 1 at Claremont Heritage’s Ginger Elliott Center, 840 N. Indian Hill Blvd., weekdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. It’s free to see.
I asked Graves about two paired images in the show. One is of the sign for the Roadrunner’s Retreat restaurant in Chambless, east of Amboy.
A 2015 photo shows the sign in decrepitude. A 2026 photo shows the sign after it was restored to working life thanks to grants, fundraising and in-kind contributions.
Graves went to last November’s switch-on ceremony, but it took place after dark, which meant he missed the “golden half-hour,” as he calls it, of dusk. He returned one evening this year to get the sign at the right moment. He stood in the middle of 66 to shoot it. Not a single car passed during his visit.
Because he isn’t a journalistic photographer, Graves is willing to digitally enhance a picture if he thinks that, like a painter, he can get an image closer to his ideal. For instance, he increased the contrast on a nighttime photo through the windows of Emma Jean’s to get the dim light inside to glow.
But he does have a reverence for Route 66. “I thought it was important to document what’s there,” Graves told me. “The El Rancho Motel in Barstow is gone. Burned to the ground.”
brIEfly
At Art’s Bar and Grill in Riverside, veteran server Debbie Hodson has a vast wardrobe of sarcastic T-shirts, some of them gifted by customers. One night last week, she wore one with this message: “I’ve been killing them with kindness. When do they die?”
David Allen ponders the imponderable Friday, Sunday and Wednesday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.