2017 Expedition · 2027 Return

ROUTE 1
MISSION CONTROL

One road. Countless stories. Field reports, photographs, films, recordings, interviews and discoveries gathered between Mile Marker Zero in Key West and Mile Marker Zero in Fort Kent.

The living archive is expanding
The Route 1 Project van during the 2017 expedition

The Route 1 Project follows America’s oldest continuous highway from Key West, Florida, to Fort Kent, Maine—not as a conventional road trip, but as a path through a nonlinear cultural landscape. The road connects cities, small towns, abandoned businesses, music scenes, family histories, forgotten landmarks and people whose stories rarely occupy the same map.

Everything gathered on the road enters the shared information system of the David Bieber Archives sphere, connected everywhere and available wherever it needs to appear.

Travel the RoadMove north through the complete Key West-to-Fort Kent itinerary.Explore the CollectionsEnter through black-and-white photographs, neon, plaques and roadside evidence.Meet the DiscoveriesFind the artists, witnesses and voices revealed by the journey.
Project Status

A LIVING ARCHIVE

The original city and state features are being separated from the Route 1 Field Reports. The Atlas holds each place’s permanent cultural portrait; the Field Report preserves what happened on the road. They remain connected without becoming the same page.

2017

The expedition created the photographic, audio, video and diary record.

NOW

The evidence is being organized into Field Reports, collections and discoveries.

2027

The tenth-anniversary return retraces the northern road from Philadelphia to Fort Kent.

Key West, Florida, at the southern end of U.S. Route 1
First Field Report

KEY WEST

Hurricane Irma, Tony Roberts, Lance Taylor and Woody Guthrie at the southern end of the road. Key West is the working model for every report that follows.

Four Ways In

EXPLORE THE ARCHIVE

PHOTO GALLERIES

Berenice Abbott–inspired black-and-white, neon in color, plaques and visual evidence from every stop.

View Photos

VIDEO

Interviews, performances and encounters recorded as the expedition moved north.

Watch Video

SOUNDTRACK

The artists, records and songs that turned the highway into a cultural map.

Listen

ARTISTS

Begin in Key West with Tony Roberts and Lance Taylor—two discoveries whose stories continue beyond the stop.

Field Report Architecture

EVERY STOP. ONE NAVIGATION.

Each Field Report makes room for the personal journey, documentary evidence and archival connections.

  1. Overview
  2. Diary
  3. Photographs
  4. Video
  5. Audio
  6. Interviews
  7. Discoveries
  8. Atlas
  9. Continue Journey
The Road Remains in Motion

THE 2027 RETURN

Ten years after the original expedition, the Route 1 Project returns to the northern road from Philadelphia to Fort Kent to ask three questions: What survived? What disappeared? What changed?

The 2017 archive is the baseline. The road supplies the next chapter.