Carol M. Highsmith Archive photos from the 2010s

A bald eagle at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colorado. They are not actually bald; the name derives from an older meaning of "white headed," from the word "piebald," applied to animals of two colors: a dark, dominant one and a light, or white, one. The bald eagle fits that descript

A "birdhouse library," one of several take-one, leave-one outreach boxes of the municipal library around Colorado Springs, Colorado

A "mountain man" rides a stallion during pregame festivities at a Denver Broncos National Football League game against the visiting San Francisco 49ers at the Sports Authority Field at Mile High stadium, Denver, Colorado

A "birdhouse library," a miniature source for books in which citizens are encouraged to leave books they've finished and help themselves to those that interest them. Cheyenne, Wyoming

A "bank barn" near Circleville in Pendleton County, West Virginia

A barnside billboard in rural Hampshire County, West Virginia, containing a health warning directed at the many users of chewing or "spit" tobacco in rural parts of Appalachia

A block along the National Road in Wheeling, West Virginia, that includes the El Villa Apartment Building

A block of South Main Street in Lamar, the county seat of Prowers County, Colorado

A beautiful valley along the dirt Alpine Loop, winding high into the San Juan Mountains above Silverton, Colorado

A block of Main Street in Ouray, Colorado, an old mining community high in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado

A barn with a message in rural Otero County, Colorado, near the historic Bent's Old Fort

A bighorn sheep in Colorado National Monument, a preserve of vast plateaus, canyons, and towering monoliths in Mesa County, Colorado, near Grand Junction

A Bighorn sheep on the road in Colorado National Monument, a preserve of vast plateaus, canyons, and towering monoliths in Mesa County, Colorado, near Grand Junction

A BASE jumper leaps into the 876-foot chasm from New River Gorge Bridge, a steel arch bridge 3,030 feet long near Fayetteville in Fayette County, West Virginia

A block of Fairmont Street, across from the Marion County Courthouse, in Fairmont, West Virginia

A canal and buildings at the Berkeley Springs Resort in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia

A building in the Union Avenue commercial district in Pueblo, Colorado

A car befitting the vintage of its surroundings at Sharp's Country Store in Slaty Fork, an unincorporarted town in Pocahontas County, West Virginia

A bridge over the New River, south of Thurmond in Fayette County, West Virginia

A building in Bluefield, West Virginia, that once housed a shop that sold "retread" tires

A compact Church of Christ in the town of Ridgway in Ouray County, Colorado

A classic, illuminated Greyhound Bus Lines sign in Neon Alley, a public-art project in Pueblo, Colorado, devised by sign collector Joseph Koncilja

A charging barrel racer at a large outdoor rodeo that's a feature of the annual (in this case 75th anniversary) Jubilee festival in Laramie, Wyoming

A catchy sign promoting the nearby River Forks Inn in the little town of Drake, along U.S. 34, the route to Rocky Mountain National Park between Loveland and Estes Park in Larimer County, Colorado

A child turns a rougly carved scrap of marble into a playhouse in the aptly named town of Marble in Gunnison County, Colorado. Such remnants of various sizes and quality can be seen throughout the tiny town

A colorful cottage that matches the purple lupin flowers out front in Crested Butte, a town heavily populated during ski season located high in the Rocky Mountains in Gunnison County, Colorado

A Chesapeake & Ohio Railway coal train approaches Thurmond, a mostly deserted old Appalachian coal town in West Virginia

A coal mine in the distressed Appalachian Mountains city of Welch, West Virginia

A classic direct gear locomotive pushes cars of tourists out of the station at Cass Scenic Railroad State Park in Cass, West Virginia

A conductor aboard the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (D&SNG) train as it heads north through La Plata County from Durango, Colorado

A decorative marker indicating the spot where, in 1806, Rocky Mountain explorer Zebulon Pike (for whom Pikes Peak is named) once camped, next to what is now (in 2015) the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk, a 32-acre urban waterfront with excursion and gondola boat rides, food, festivals, and entertainment

A cowpoke feels the full effect of a bucking bronco, straight out of the gate at a large outdoor rodeo that's a feature of the annual (in this case 75th anniversary) Jubilee Days festival in Laramie, Wyoming

A cowpoke doesn't have much time left aboard this bucking bronco at a large outdoor rodeo that's a feature of the annual (in this case 75th anniversary) Jubilee festival in Laramie, Wyoming

A cowboy, having lassoed his calf, approaches for the takedown at a large outdoor rodeo that's a feature of the annual (in this case 75th anniversary) Jubilee festival in Laramie, Wyoming

A cowpoke doesn't have much time left aboard this bucking bronco at a large outdoor rodeo that's a feature of the annual (in this case 75th anniversary) Jubilee Days festival in Laramie, Wyoming

A cross between bleakness and lushness in Rocky Mountain National Park in the Front Range of the spectacular and high Rockies in north-central Colorado

A contestant, Zsazsa, and its owner, Richard Wismara, at the annual Weiner Dog Races, part of the West Side Main Street Program and FestivAll Charleston on the grounds of a middle school in Charleston, West Virginia

A curious old building that straddles the Nebraska-Wyoming border in Pine Bluffs, a small farming community that's 90 percent in Laramie County, Wyoming

A curious but wary ground squirrel along the high, dirt Washington Gulch Road above Crested Butte in Gunnison County, Colorado

A distressed block in downtown Grafton, West Virginia

A Dow Chemical plant in Charleston, West Virginia

A diesel locomotive and freight cars, and a line of hoppers filled with coal, sit behind the CSX train station in Huntington, West Virginia

A downtown building in New Cumberland, West Virginia, that has served as, among other things, a funeral home and a hardware store

A dilipidated, but curved, old sign for the defunct Curve Motel, which indeed happens to be situated on a pronounced curve of U.S. Highway 50 in Rocky Ford, Colorado

A Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (D&SNG) train proceeds along the rocky "Highline" ridge high above the Animas River Valley in La Plata County, Colorado

A dirt road winds through a sea of high plains yellow sundrops on the Laramie Plain, a vast grassland south of Laramie, Wyoming

A distant outcropping on the Laramie Plain, a high-country grassland south of Laramie in Albany County, Wyoming

A double rarity (for 2015) in Kremmling, Colorado: an old motel turned art gallery, and a working pay telephone

A dogtrot cabin at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center in Casper, Wyoming

A diesel locomotive passes along what were once bustling passenger rail lines of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad as well in Grafton, West Virginia, which was an early B&O hub

A diesel locomotive, painted in the colors and with the symbols of the local Marshall University, sits at the CSX station in Huntington, West Virginia. The railroad donated the locomotive and a passenger car to the university

A doe, feeling quite at home on the golf course at the Oglebay Park and Resort in Wheeling, West Virginia

A downtown block, including a building with an idiosyncratic, 1970s-style aluminum facade, in La Junta, Colorado

A downtown building with an idiosyncratic, 1970s-style aluminum facade, in La Junta, Colorado

A Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (D&SNG) train follows the rushing Animas River on its mountainous journey through San Juan County, Colorado

A downtown block in Buckhannon, the seat of Upshur County, West Virginia, dominated by the stone-fronted T.J. Farnsworth Building, owned by the town's most prosperous banker and long occupied by a G.C. Murphy 5-and 10-cent store

A former administrator's building at Colorado State Hospital, once known as the Colorado Insane Asylum, in Pueblo, Colorado

A footbridge and meadow in the shadow of the San Juan Mountains in Ouray County, near Ridgway, Colorado

A freight train carrying chemicals, looking like a long metal snake, passes beneath a bridge overlooking the expansive trainyard in La Junta, Colorado

A feed plant that incorporated what looks a bit like a repurposed old Santa Fe Railroad freight car, in La Junta, Colorado