Many of us know about the various AAA (and other) road signs scattered through the DV backcountry, and some written and photographic accounts of AAA excursions from the 1920s and 30s survive. Anyone here familiar with archival AAA or automotive materials that may give more details about routes through the park or travel guides from the 1930s and 20s before many of the roads we now use were made? For example, there was a route that went up the N. Fork of Lemoigne to Cottonwood Springs. The road trace is long gone but there are automotive artifacts in the area that are known to backcountry explorers. Trying to tread carefully here about what I say and what I want to know… 

I think my question is clear enough. If I find anything on my own I'll share it.

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No luck yet, but this is interesting. Look how different the naming is, and the complete lack of detail in the landscape:

VERY old map of DV

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Here's a collection of 17 photographs from the Automobile Club of Southern California, ca. 1926. Cant figure out where this first one is, or any others to be frank.

http://cdm15799.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/c...567/rec/43

Try this:

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchR...e&kn=&isbn=

I have a copy.

Here is a link to a copy of the 1955 AAA Desert Quadrangle map which includes Death Valley...

1955 AAA Desert Quad Map

Also the 1949 AAA San Bernardino County map that includes the very southern tip of Death Valley...

1949 AAA San Bernardino County Map

This link goes to a folder with five PDF sections of the hand-drawn Hawkins Death Valley map.  I got a copy of the map book in the early 1970s and it may have been done in the 1960s.

Hawkins Death Valley Map Book

Those are all cool sources! Thanks for those.

I'm specifically looking for older things… I'll try and get that 1938 book, but I think apart from my interest in WPA/CCC era works it will little advance my quest for the early auto routes. Even the 1910(?) topo map of the area is a bit bare in those things.

If you search Ebay regularly, some old AAA stuff pops up ever now and again. There is also a ton of recent items to sort through.

Desert Fog, those old AAA maps are very cool!

Would you happen to have an old AAA Kern County map you could share?

GowerGulch42:  You can pull up old USGS maps at the link below.  They would at least show old road alignments.

https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#4/40.01/-100.06

Finally, anyone interested in old Auto Club road signs should visit the Antique Store in Kramer Junction, CA (junction of Hwy's 58 and 395).  There are some signs in the store.  And many more in the building next door, which seemed to be more of a museum.  I.e., the stuff in there was not for sale, at least when I visited a few years ago.   If you look the place up on Google Maps, you can see pics showing their collection.

(2020-10-02, 11:10 PM)Candace66 Wrote: Desert Fog, those old AAA maps are very cool!

Would you happen to have an old AAA Kern County map you could share?


I agree Candace, I can study those old maps for hours.
 
I found all those old maps on eBay usually around $9 each.  I was only looking for eastern Mojave and San Bernardino county maps and didn't get any of Kern County.  But I did see some offered.

(2020-10-02, 11:10 PM)Candace66 Wrote: You can pull up old USGS maps at the link below.  They would at least show old road alignments.

https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#4/40.01/-100.06

Wow, that link has an incredible collection of topo maps, thank you for sharing!

The old USGS maps were the first place I looked, and they didn't include a number of the routes I know to have been in use so I turned my gaze elsewhere. Even the aforementioned 1910 15'x15' I have framed on my wall is lacking in several of the routes I am curious about.

(2020-10-04, 11:53 PM)GowerGulch42 Wrote: The old USGS maps were the first place I looked, and they didn't include a number of the routes I know to have been in use so I turned my gaze elsewhere. Even the aforementioned 1910 15'x15' I have framed on my wall is lacking in several of the routes I am curious about.

From my newspaper research in Inyo County newspapers, road and trail signing was undertaken during the latter half of the first decade of the 20th century by the county. Inyo County and AAA were the primary signers in the Death Valley area.

There are numerous signs at Laws Railroad Museum near Bishop. I also remember seeing signs on a house in Keeler years ago, but don’t know if they are still there.