AARoads Forum

National Boards => General Highway Talk => Topic started by: Hot Rod Hootenanny on February 18, 2012, 11:17:17 PM

Title: Old Maps on the internet
Post by: Hot Rod Hootenanny on February 18, 2012, 11:17:17 PM
Was alerted to this via the Roadmap Collectors Assoc. facebook page from someone's blog about "Awful Library Books."

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fawfullibrarybooks.files.wordpress.com%2F2010%2F01%2Fhighwaymap.jpg%3Fw%3D1024&hash=146de6f0ead3a55866868c74827a82687f3072f4)

Oversized version of map: http://awfullibrarybooks.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/highwaymap.jpg (http://awfullibrarybooks.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/highwaymap.jpg)
Title: Re: Old Maps on the internet
Post by: Zmapper on February 18, 2012, 11:41:24 PM
Cool! What year was that map from? It is pre-Interstate system, obviously.
Title: Re: Old Maps on the internet
Post by: The High Plains Traveler on February 19, 2012, 12:46:54 PM
What ever happened to that superhighway from Miami to Key West that this map shows as "In operation or under construction"?
Title: Re: Old Maps on the internet
Post by: huskeroadgeek on February 19, 2012, 03:13:40 PM
Quote from: Zmapper on February 18, 2012, 11:41:24 PM
Cool! What year was that map from? It is pre-Interstate system, obviously.
Based on the fact that the Turner Turnpike from Oklahoma City to Tulsa is shown as built but the Will Rogers Turnpike is not(and neither is the Kansas Turnpike) the date is sometime between 1953 and 1956. Most of these routes proposed I believe were planned as toll roads, although most of them were built as free roads when the interstate system came into being.
Title: Re: Old Maps on the internet
Post by: vtk on February 19, 2012, 09:26:38 PM
The positional accuracy is lacking in that map.  Knoxville is shown far northeast of where it should be; the WV Turnpike and what I assume became I-79 north of there are shown too far west.
Title: Re: Old Maps on the internet
Post by: Hot Rod Hootenanny on February 19, 2012, 09:29:17 PM
Quote from: Zmapper on February 18, 2012, 11:41:24 PM
Cool! What year was that map from? It is pre-Interstate system, obviously.
The blog post that map came from said 1954.
Title: Re: Old Maps on the internet
Post by: kkt on February 20, 2012, 12:59:50 AM
Hmm.  Pretty sure that by 1954 most of US-99 was constructed as a 4-lane expressway at least in California.  And US-40 at least from San Francisco to Sacramento. Maybe this mapmaker just never went west of the Rockies.
Title: Re: Old Maps on the internet
Post by: agentsteel53 on February 20, 2012, 01:19:01 PM
Quote from: kkt on February 20, 2012, 12:59:50 AM
Hmm.  Pretty sure that by 1954 most of US-99 was constructed as a 4-lane expressway at least in California.  And US-40 at least from San Francisco to Sacramento. Maybe this mapmaker just never went west of the Rockies.


only very few segments of US-99 and US-40 were limited-access by 1954.  but you are right, the quantity is more than zero. 

LA should have a lot of activity on that map, and it shows none.  indeed, maybe the author fell off the Denver-Boulder Turnpike?
Title: Re: Old Maps on the internet
Post by: formulanone on February 20, 2012, 10:16:44 PM
Being that it's Scholastic Magazine, it's probably a false map that hints at reality, but used as some sort sort of quiz or problem-solving puzzle. It doesn't really seem to be anything official, although it does seem to trace out a few principal interstate routes.