Sign In

- Or use -
Forgot Password Create Account
This item has been sold, but you can enter your email address to be notified if another example becomes available.
Stock# 92699
Description

The First Southern California Automobile Touring Guide

Rare automobile touring guide, with ideas for road trips from Santa Barbara to Tijuana.  

Illustrated with 80 strip maps and loads of regional advertisements.  Included are helpful tips, laws and regulations, and suggestions for sleeping arrangements and garage recommendations for destinations from Tijuana to San Francisco. The introduction notes:

It is the province of the Automobile Club of Southern California to gather and collect touring data with reference to the roads of the State, and to disseminate this information among its members, and the touring public generally. None realizes and appreciates more than the motorist the value of good maps and road information. Other editions will follow from season to season, corrected to date.

History of Early Automobile Roads in California

Automobile fever reached California at the very end of the 1890s. The first gasoline-powered vehicle built west of the Mississippi River appeared on the streets of Los Angeles in the early morning hours of Sunday, May 30, 1897, and the first time a “motor carriage” appeared anywhere in Southern California. The four-cylinder, gasoline-powered carriage built by J. Philip Erie and S.D. Sturgis was tested on the city streets of Los Angeles in preparation for a trial run to San Bernardino.

Three years later, on December 13, 1900, a group of Los Angeles auto enthusiasts incorporated the Automobile Club of Southern California.

Five years later, in 1905, there were a total of 6,500 cars, trucks, and motorcycles in all of California.

Travel between cities was still a very precarious thing with many routes unmarked and in poor condition unsuited for the early automobiles. The Automobile Club sought to remedy this by putting up road signs throughout California and the American Southwest.

1908, with Henry Ford's introduction of the Model T, car ownership was within reach of the American family. Interestingly, the present atlas points to how Ford and other major manufacturers had not yet consolidated the market when it was produced; the non-map pages are filled with advertisements for smaller car companies, manufacturing in places like Racine, Wisconsin.

The Automobile Club of Southern California first started issuing road maps around 1906. These developed into the famous strip maps in 1912.

In 1907,  J. F. Hancock published the first California Road Atlas.

This atlas was produced before the most important piece of early automobile road legislation had been passed in California; the California Highway Act of 1910 provided for $18,000,000 in bonds to be issued for highway construction and improvements. Every county and city fought for their fair share of the funds, but even this massive bond was a drop in the bucket for statewide road requirements.

Rarity

Were were unable to locate any other examples.

Condition Description
Description: 384pp. Octavo [24 cm] Full leather with the title gilt stamped on the front board. Minor discreet professional repairs. Very good.