Auburn, Cal. — Presented with Compliments of W. B. Lardner, Real Estate Agent, Auburn, Placer Co., Cal.

Cartographer: Drawn, lithographed, and published by W. W. Elliott & Co., San Francisco, 1887; issued for W. B. Lardner

Year: 1887

This richly colored bird’s-eye view looks north-east across Auburn’s rolling Sierra-foothill orchards toward the snow-capped crest. The central panorama is ringed by twenty-two vignette sketches of local landmarks, including the courthouse, Sierra Normal College, fruit ranches, hydraulic mines, and the Central Pacific trestle, underscoring Auburn’s blend of education, agriculture, and gold-rush industry. Every street, flume, irrigation ditch, and rail spur is crisply drawn, while thousands of evenly spaced fruit and olive trees cloak the hills in green, advertising the region’s horticultural promise. A keyed legend identifies nineteen public buildings and businesses, and a tiny inset map shows Auburn’s rail connections to Sacramento and San Francisco. Produced as a promotional premium for Lardner’s real-estate office, the print was aimed at would-be settlers seeking “homes in the Italy of California.” Today it offers historians a detailed snapshot of Placer County’s evolving economy in the late 1880s.