1920 book: "California Highways," free download

[Kniwt]

I haven't seen this mentioned here before, so:
The 1920 book "California Highways" (not the state magazine) is available for free download at Google Books. It's 557 pages with lots of photos and maps, plus a description of each state route, and reports from each district ... including a section about the plank road (future US 80), while it was still in service.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/California_Highways/PaQ9AQAAIAAJ

[rte66man]

Many thanks for the heads up. It's already proven fascinating and informative.

[mrsman]

Many thanks for the heads up. It's already proven fascinating and informative.

Agreed.  I'm taking my time reading through this as well.  It provides a wonderful history of a plan to make a state highway corridor to connect to all of the county seats.

For those with highway history websites in Cal, I'm sure that there is a lot that they can utilize from this.

Back then, Caltrans was delineated into only 7 districts:

Dist. 1 = Mendocino, Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake - same as today

Dist. 2 = Trinity, Tehama, Shasta, Sisikiyou, Lassen, Modoc - same as today, but Plumas County is also added into D2 today

Dist. 3 = Glenn, Butte, Colusa, Yolo, Solano, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tolumne, Calaveras, Amador, El Dorado, Placer, Alpine, Sierra, Nevada, Plumas, Yuba, Sutter, Sacramento -
Today, Plumas was moved to D2, Solano moved to D4, and San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tolumne, Calaveras, Amador, Alpine are now part of D10 today

Dist. 4 = SF, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa, Sonoma, Marin - same as today with Solano also added into D4, but Santa Cruz moved to D5.

Dist. 5 = Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, San Bentio - same as today with the addition of Santa Cruz into D5.

Dist. 6 = Merced, Mariposa, Mono (probably)*, Inyo (probably)*, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare, Kern - Merced and Mariposa are today part of D10, Mono and Inyo are part of D9, and the rest are still D6 today.

Dist. 7 = the entire Southern California (Ventura, LA, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego, Imperial) - Today, this district has been divided into many with only Ventura and LA being part of D7, Orange is on its own as D12, SB and Riverside as D8, San Diego and Imperial as D11.

Obviously, the historical context helps us understand today's Caltrans district map.

* The parts of the book I have so far read don't mention these counties.