After poking around Nikolas Schiller’s page from the last post, I stumbled upon an online collection of maps of Los Angeles from the turn of the century.

The Library of Congress Exhibition, called “Los Angeles Mapped,” documents the history of how people viewed L.A. — from its late 1600s existence as a theoretical island to its orchard & oil existence to the early freeways, it’s a fascinating little collection of images.

Even though they’re not exactly the easiest things to navigate around, they are still great to look at. Of particular interest is the full map of L.A. County’s rail system from 1912, when the SouthLand was covered in over 1000 miles of track.

I just got an email from someone asking how to get to some good long distance trails in L.A. without a car. Sadly, the easiest answer is “go back to 1912 and take the rail to Echo Mountain or Chantry Flats.”

But hey, in November we might be able to vote for an additional tax to fund that Subway to the Sea we’ve heard so much about …

Tags: cartography, los angeles history, maps, online exhibit, railway, streetcars, subway