An A-State professor’s journey to catalog lone shoes in America’s roadways

Dr. Michael Bowman, associate professor of media, is the owner of @oneshoeintheroad, an Instagram account documenting single shoes left behind on various roads. He made his first post on Sept. 3, 2017 and over the years the account has grown to 84 followers and 194 posts.

“Ever since I can remember when you would drive down the street in a country road, down the highway or whatever, it seems like there was always just one shoe in the road. It seems like that’s been my whole life,” Bowman said. “With the availability of programs like Instagram, and being able to easily take pictures with your phone, I thought, ‘why not create an Instagram page focusing on one shoe in the road?’”

As the account has grown, multiple people have sent in photos of their own footwear discoveries to be featured on the page. He’s received pictures from California, Florida, Vermont, Alabama and more. People have also messaged him with shoe locations, which he then goes out and photographs.

“That’s one of the things that ‘s kind of amazed me is how people when they’re traveling, when they’re out for a walk or something like that, they’ll see a shoe in the road and they’ll take a picture and send it to me,” Bowman said.

Hannah Campbell, a University of North Alabama alum who majored in journalism and digital media, has submitted photos to the page. She is engaged to Bowman’s son.

“I saw the page and thought it was funny and then I started to keep my eye out for shoes,” Campbell said. “Surprisingly, if you look, you’ll find shoes everywhere across town.”

Bowman added that his page shows that professors can be “just as quirky” as students are and the account demonstrates that through social media and smartphones, anyone can become a content creator. 

Bowman said he’s had pictures of “everything from sandals, to high heels, to boots.” He said one of the most unique submissions was a lone shoe from a doll.

Despite the fact that Bowman documents the shoes, he said he’s never seen the actual shoe getting left in the road.

“It’s kind of like Bigfoot. You see all these photos, this photographic evidence of Bigfoot and footprints and fur on leaves and stuff,” Bowman said. “But you never actually see Bigfoot. But you know, maybe one of these days I’ll be driving along and as shoe comes flying out the back of the car or something and I’ll go ‘that’s how it happens!’”

Bowman said he has submissions from 10-12 states. He wants to get pictures of shoes from every state and might even want to find lone shoes across the globe. 

“I was thinking about this the other day, we’ve had all these trips to the moon and you’ve got that famous picture of the footprint on the moon,” Bowman said. “So maybe there are some shoes up there that need to be explored as well. You never know.”

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