Map of California – Compiled from Latest Official Authentic Information by the Southern Pacific Company

Cartographer: Drafting Department, Southern Pacific Company, San Francisco; issued by the Passenger Traffic Department, c. 1928

Year: 1901

Printed in two colors, this large sheet presents every Southern Pacific main line and branch then in operation: the Shasta Route to Oregon, the Overland line through Donner Pass, the San Joaquin Valley and Coast Routes, the Sunset Route to El Paso, and a web of electric interurbans around Los Angeles and the Bay Area – all drawn in bold blue over a pale county base. A red overprint singles out recent extensions such as the Natron Cut-off, while a boxed mileage table lets tourists calculate fares between any two SP stations. The right-hand third of the sheet is filled with a dense alphabetical directory of more than 1,400 stops, keyed to a letter-number grid around the map’s border for quick location. Insets detail Napa Valley and the Bay ferries. By combining a traveler’s gazetteer with a striking visual of the company’s reach, the map served both as a timetable supplement and as persuasive advertising for Southern Pacific’s “Sunset-Ogden-Shasta Routes.”