In a city full of neon signs and enduring hotels and motor lodges along historic U.S. Route 66, Gallup, New Mexico’s Hotel El Rancho is among the most venerable. Part of its “charm of yesterday” that its very entrance proclaims was its legacy as the haunt of Hollywood stars passing through town by train. Its ads note, too, that “the hotel is not just about movie stars. You’ll be following in the footsteps of Americans who have traveled West, in hopes of a better life.” Photo by Carol Highsmith, 2020.