America's Layered Roads

Wayfound traces the overlapping transportation corridors of the American West — where the Oregon Trail, the Beale Wagon Road, and Historic Route 66 share the same geography, layered across centuries of movement.

The Three Corridors

  • Oregon Trail — The overland emigrant route that funneled hundreds of thousands westward from the 1840s through the 1860s
  • Beale Wagon Road — Lt. Edward Beale's 1857 survey route across the 35th parallel, built with camels and later paved into Route 66
  • Historic Route 66 — The Mother Road, connecting Chicago to Los Angeles from 1926 to 1985

Using the Map

  • Tap any marker to see a site's history, GPS coordinates, and historical quotes
  • Filter by corridor using the buttons above the map
  • Time slider — drag to scrub through history; press play to animate automatically
  • Route lines — solid = active, dashed = visible, thin = paved over, dotted = lost
  • Cross-links — each popup links to Journal, Compare, and Directory

Explore Further

Use Journal for field dispatches, Compare to see eras stack at one location, and Directory to search every documented site.

Content editor — /content-editor.html. Load a JSON file, edit visually, download the result.

Heritage (1990)

Field Journal

Dispatches from the overlapping roads of the American West

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Corridor Comparison

How does one place layer across different transportation eras?

Each site below was used across multiple eras of American movement. Select one to see the layers stack.

Select a location above to explore its layered history

Site Directory

Every documented infrastructure site

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