Here’s a beautiful old illustrative map – this is from a prospectus advertising the benefits of settling in San Joaquin County, California in 1910. Part of depicting this as a desirable place to live and do business is showing the multitude of modern railway lines – including several electric interurbans – almost all of which seem to converge upon Stockton, neatly in the middle of the map.

This being an advertising tool, the situation shown is one of a promised future – text beneath the map notes that some of the railroads are actually only partially built or planned… but they’ll be finished really soon, we promise! It’s a technique that was often used in sales brochures of the time: here’s another one from Pullman, Washington in 1911 that shows an electric interurban line from Colfax and Spokane that never actually got built.

The map itself is charming: mostly to scale, but with big chunky roads and railroad lines overlaid on top to emphasise their importance. Little trains chug along their lines, and the whole thing looks sort of like a Railroad Tycoon game in progress. The interesting colour palette is a result of the lithographic printing process, which didn’t use CMYK inks like modern printing. To me, this looks like three or four inks were used – black, sky blue, orange and perhaps yellow as well (the clean yellow areas just don’t look like a tint of the orange to me). The clever overlaying of these inks allows other colours like green and a darker blue to be created.

Our final word: Decorative and evocative; it does a good job of painting the county in the most positive light.

Source: David Rumsey Map Collection