Virginia A. Horton

January 28, 2008

Hist. 4000

Dr. Dan Morrill

Main Street To Miracle Mile: American Roadside Architecture. By Chester H. Liebs. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1985. Acknowledgements, introduction, illustrations, notes, index. Pp. 227.)

            Main Street to Miracle Mile by Chester Liebs is a nonfiction book about America’s roadside architecture. Liebs has been a professor of roadside architecture at both Boston University and Columbia University and in 1975 helped found the Historic Preservation Program at the University of Vermont. Liebs has presented his book in a way that focuses on the impact the automobile made on American culture. Liebs has compiled the different areas into one book that has been subdivided into smaller parts that will focus on the different areas impacted by the automobile.

            Main Street to Miracle Mile is a very interesting book in that Liebs focused only on the automobile throughout time. He has started out by telling the reader how the automobile came into mass use and how it changed the way that people would not only travel, but how more towns would start to pop up along the way instead of always having to live near the railway. Liebs goes on to tell the readers that the car shortened the amount of time it took to get from one place to another, since you did not have to stop and either let your horse rest or stop at every train station from the time you get on the train until it is time to get off the train. The car was a major invention and has forever changed the way the man made environment looks at present time.

            Liebs explains that new marketing schemes had to be invented, now that people were driving by the shop fronts instead of walking by. The signs had to be bigger, and more eye catching since the people were seeing the signs much faster. As the car became more popular, the architecture of the buildings and how main streets were laid out had to be altered to make room for parking and gas stations. The car gave way to many new ideas such as auto showrooms, supermarkets, mini-golf, drive-in’s, motels and restaurants.

             Many main streets were becoming overcrowded and too dense, so the answer to fix the problem was to put in highways to go around Main Street due to the congestion. This was the start of not having everything centrally located within either walking distance or located on the street car line. With this in mind, mini golf, supermarkets, and drive in’s were able to be invented, since they all needed large amounts of land to build on. No longer did someone need to have different shops for everything.

            Liebs has been able to tell the reader not only the history of the automobile, but also about how the landscape has changed over the years. In my opinion the automobile was one of the single most important inventions in not only American culture, but worldwide. Without the automobile, we would not have drive-in’s, supermarkets, restaurants, etc. and the cities or towns would not be located were some of them are today nor would they be as big as they are if we were still relying on the train, horse drawn buggies and street cars to get around.