Take a trip back in time with roadside photos of Colorado kitsch

Who’s ready for a summer road trip? But instead of just driving through today’s Colorado, let’s go back into the ’80s, ’90s and 2000s.

John Margolies captured motels, roadside attractions, restaurants and other slices of the country for “Roadside America,” a series of photographs he took while traveling over 100,000 miles across the United States from 1969 to 2008. He visited Colorado at least three times during those travels, in 1980, 1991 and 2004, stopping by dozens of towns around the state.

Margolies’ photos of old Pueblo motels, restaurants in Colorado Springs, and Denver theaters in the ’80s and ’90s highlight times long since passed, when commerce had more personality, flair and color.

Most of these businesses and roadside attractions have closed, like Denver’s Centre Theatre and the infamous Manor House Motel in Aurora. Several have transformed under new occupants, such as the Ogden and Gothic theaters, both of which were once movie palaces but are now popular concert venues. However, several of the Denver subjects are still going strong, like Crown Lanes, Pete’s Kitchen, the Lion’s Lair and the old-school McDonald’s in Aurora, and a handful of the hotels Margolies shot are still open with their original neon signs.

The Library of Congress bought Margolies’ “Roadside America” in 2015, a year before he passed away, and opened the collection to the public. From Colfax Avenue to the fossilized town hall of Dinosaur, here are snapshots of what driving through Colorado was like in decades past.