Contour Maps of Southern California with Descriptive Routes

H. G. Otis / J. O. Baker

Published by H. G. Otis / J. O. Baker, 1912

About this Item

Rare Early Automobile Travel Map Guidebook for Southern CaliforniaSan Diego to Yuma with Imperial Valley and El Centro A very early detailed illustrated auto travel atlas and guidebook for Southern California, Narrow octavo. Original cloth-backed printed wrappers (in two colors). Wrappers edge chipped, with crease to front wrapper. Spine cloth frayed, with a couple tape repairs. 104 pages illustrations (including many automobile "contour" strip maps). First leaf ("Introductory" text) detached. Complete. Internally clean. Rare Early Automobile Travel Map Guidebook for Southern CaliforniaSan Diego to Yuma with Imperial Valley and El Centro A very early detailed illustrated auto travel atlas and guidebook for Southern California, with a focus on San Diego and the newly accessible "San Diego to Imperial Valley and Yuma route." The detailed text facing each map includes fascinating details about landmarks, businesses, bridges, and road conditions along the various routes. For example, La Jolla gets four different route descriptions: from San Diego to La Jolla, from La Jolla to San Diego, from La Jolla to Oceanside and from Oceanside to La Jolla.Issued in San Diego in 1912 by car dealer H. G. Otis (not to be confused with the newspaper mogul Harrison Gray Otis), this locally printed guide presents an alternative to the well-known Automobile Club of Southern California strip maps. Otis's map route book stands apart from that Los Angeles-centered mapping program as an on-the-ground San Diego production aimed squarely at the new San Diego - Imperial Valley - Yuma corridor. Its "contour maps" were made by El Centro-based J. O. Baker, and the advertising for garages, hotels, and roadside services between San Diego, El Centro, Imperial, and Yuma reflect the moment when such auto stage services were just beginning to link San Diego and the Imperial Valley. This is before the Mountain Springs Grade (opened 1913) and the famous Plank Road across the Algodones Dunes (completed 1915) finally tamed the desert barrier to Yuma. The publisher s own Pathfinder expedition through trackless sand between Yuma and Holtville, vividly described herein, anticipates future improvements and documents the hardships that spurred regional boosters and engineers into action. Central among them would be Colonel Ed Fletcher, San Diego developer and road commissioner, who with allies in Imperial County championed a direct highway from San Diego through the Imperial Valley to Yuma and helped secure state backing for an improved desert crossing - work that this rare guidebook effectively heralds from the perspective of a San Diego motorist on the eve of modern highway construction.The guidebook includes several interesting photographic illustrations showing the pubisher's "Pathfinder" car on the route from San Diego to Yuma. The introduction notes that the road was actually not quite completed: It is anticipated that a road between Yuma and Holtville will be built in the near future, but at the time of the passage of the publisher's 'Pathfinder' the route was a trackless waste through sand dunes and desert. This route was traversed by the 'Pathfinder' from Yuma to Brawley to the discomfiture of the car and sore tribulation to the occupants.Captioned views: "Pathfinder Car Reaches El Centro", "An Incident on the Trip [fixing flat tire in the desert]." Plus, desert scenes, an irrigating canal in the Imperial Valley, etc.J. O. Baker and "Pathfinder" Auto Survey Between Imperial Valley and YumaThe present guidebook stems from a 1912 auto road survey in the Imperial Valley commissioned by the San Diego Union and conducted by J. O. Baker, whose name appears as maker on most of the maps. A brief article in the Imperial Valley Press of 6 May 1912 reported t.

Seller Inventory # 119008

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Contour Maps of Southern California with Descriptive Routes
• Publisher: H. G. Otis / J. O. Baker
• Publication Date: 1912
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Good
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • Antique Maps