Here’s a delightful hand drawn and lettered map showing the burgeoning network of motor coach routes in Washington state in 1923. It would seem to have been produced as an accompaniment to an application for an additional route crossing the Cascades – shown as a yellow dashed line on the map – joining two previously unconnected segments of service.

Of note is the extensive service into the Olympic Peninsula by means of a joint thru-service ferry across the Puget Sound from Seattle, and the fact that there is no service at all on the north-south route from Vancouver, BC—Seattle—Portland (on what would become US 99 just three years later, and I-5 much later again).

The lettering is generally quite lovely, though there’s a few later additions of lesser quality in black ink instead of blue (see Soap Lake near Ephrata, for example). Interestingly, the red and yellow route lines seem to have been painstakingly painted over the top of the blue linework, as a number of labels are partially obscured by the paint. You can also see where some has rubbed off just east of Ellensburg.

Our final word: Charmingly naive, and an interesting look at the early days of regional motor coach transit in the Pacific Northwest.

Source: Washington State Archives