westbound I-80 at I-15, 1971

A great, great photo from 1971. This is looking west (well, probably northwest at this point) from I-80, where it begins to share pavement with I-15 for a brief stint before departing west toward the airport and San Francisco. Exit numbers? Who needs them? Street lights? In almost unnecessary abundance. Most of those lights were taken out in intervals between 1982 and 1986, due to successive budget crises.

 

For those who don't know, virtually no button copy signs exist in Salt Lake anymore. There remain three button-copy BGSs in the entire Wasatch Front, and that's it. That's a big part of why these photos are so wonderful.

 

This photo is from one of 145 boxes I've been perusing at the State Archives in downtown. These photos come from the Utah Department of Transportation, and were taken mostly by Cal Briggs or Gerald E. Peterson. The photos are sorted by year (with the exception of the first several boxes), and span from 1965 to 1997. Most are black-and-white negatives, though one can find prints here and there, as well as color slides.

 

I have to hand it to the staff over there—without them, none of these photos would be on Flickr and they'd be sitting in some box for ages. My sincerest thanks goes out to them.

 

Used by permission, Utah State Archives, all rights reserved.

Done