For the last five years, this photographer has been traveling around the United States and capturing an eclectic but dying breed of roadside architecture: the American rest stop.

Ryann Ford of Austin, Texas, who has taken 150 pictures of  these to date, notes that this architectural typology has been associated with ” rest, relief, hospitality, and nostalgia” for the last half-century. The shots shown here include Big Bend National Park, Texas (FM 170), Walker Lake, Nevada (U.S. 95), Thackerville, Oklahoma (I-35), Clines Corners, New Mexico (U.S. 66/I-40), Monument Valley, Arizona, and more.

Though The Last Stop has just reached her crowdfunding goal on Kickstarter, there is still time left to support the project in return for this oversized coffee table book which will be filled with 100 pages of images and stories. It represents both an aesthetic treat but also a critical archive of these structures, many of which are being abandoned or destroyed. Polaraids, prints and other prizes are also available.

“When interstate highways were first built, passing up many small towns, rest stops were a way to reconnect people to the places they were traveling though. They gave small towns a chance to show their cultural significance. Rest areas have become relics of America’s roadside past. These sites not only illustrate a unique period in the American travel experience, but are significant for the architectural forms found within them.”

Imagine the state of it: the United States executive mansion after 150 years of continuous occupation. By this time, the already-aging White House had been retrofit with a maze of modern amenities like plumbing, electricity and heating – none of which this expansive estate was constructed to house.

Per reporter Brian Resnick, sagging ceilings, scaffolding and supports had rendered the structure an unsanitary fire hazard by the late 1940s – some suggested scrapping it entirely and starting from scratch, but President Truman lobbied to keep and rehabilitate it.

As these amazing photographs from the National Archives & Truman Library illustrate, the entire interior had to be ripped out. Historically valuable materials and decor were meticulously cataloged and stored, and temporary steel columns and beams erected to keep the exterior from collapsing.

To get equipment like bulldozers inside and clear debris required disassembling machines to avoid bursting holes in the sides of the structure – rebuilding would have been cheaper and faster, but this careful treatment preserved irreplaceable pieces of US history.

In all rooms and on all levels, lathe, plaster, brick and mortar were laid bare, giving a unique one-time view – fortunately captured in photographs – into the hidden structure and secret architecture of the most important residence in America.