including one that was identified in Washington State.  I sent an email to
the WSDoT last night because the image scanned in at 18MB which is
generally too big for email.  I put the salient points of identification
into the email.  The  WSDoT map dude identified it as actually being in
northwest Oregon.

This is Oregon's Columbia county which is the next county east from Clatsop
where Astoria is located.  The town of Mist is just off the bottom of the
image where the 202 and the 47 intersect.  The 202 starts in Astoria and
wanders southeast through Clatsop county, intersecting highway 103  and
then starts wandering east to Mist and onward to cross the Columbia R at
Longview ,WA.  The river that runs alongside the 202 in the SW corner of
the image is the Nehalem R which crosses under the 202's bridge near the
western edge of the map.

Finally, I wound up talking to a couple of folks I know who used to work at
the NASA facility in Slidell, LA.  One of them told me that the black
rectangles (for the most part) were added to images in the early 2000s as a
means to provide some protection for infrastructure sites like power
company/coop switching yards and trainyards.

Mark Bozanich at the WSDOT, who says he's been a map geek since he was 5,
solved the mystery.  Unfortunately, I didn't start spending my summer
vacations with my folks' collection of NGS maps until I was 7.  And, I've
sent him a thank you.

virginia
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Virginia R. Hetrick, here in sunny California
Email:  [log in to unmask]
"There is always hope."
My fave:  http://www.washington.edu/cambots/camera1_l.jpg
There's no place like:  34N 8' 25.40", 117W 58' 5.36"
if you can't be at:  48N 7' 4.54" 122W 45' 50.95"
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