-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Seeking a map of Old U.S. 40 in the Carquinez Straits area,
California, 1925-1927
Date:   Thu, 8 Nov 2012 23:07:41 +0000
From:   Ken Rockwell <[log in to unmask]>
To:     Maps, Air Photo, GIS Forum - Map Librarianship
<[log in to unmask]>



I have contact with an elderly gentleman who is researching the route of
old U.S. 40.  I have helped him with the Utah section, and now he has
contacted me looking for information on the route in California,
particularly in the Bay Area. He has seen a reference that it once
passed through Martinez and Crockett in Contra Costa County.  He was
hoping I’d have a map from the 1920s that might show the designated
route, but I do not.  Our library’s Special Collections has some guide
books with strip maps for Utah and adjacent states, published by the
Utah State Association Touring Bureau and Auto Club Bureau of
Information (probably predecessors of AAA chapters), and maybe similar
guides exist for the California stretch.

My best guess is that, when U.S. 40 was designated in 1925, it was
routed through Benicia to a ferry crossing the Carquinez Strait to
Martinez and then followed a route west to San Pablo Avenue, which was
certainly U.S. 40 later on.  When the first Carquinez Bridge was built
in 1927, they rerouted the official highway over it.  So the key is to
find a road map showing U.S. 40 during the two-year period between
designation and rerouting.  Maybe one of your collections out there
(library or private) includes such a map and you could look this up for
us?  A copy, paper or scanned would be wonderful if such a map is found.

Thanks…

Ken Rockwell

Marriott Library

University of Utah