1949 Washington State Department of Highways Pictorial Highway Map of Washington

This is a striking 1949 State of Washington Department of Highways pictorial road map of Washington.

A Closer Look

Bright red highlights state highways, with notations indicating road grades (double pavement, paved, improved, and dirt roads). Cities and towns are labeled throughout the state, with Spokane, Seattle, and Tacoma appearing in large bold lettering. Bright red areas highlight Mount Rainier National Park and Olympic National Park. Counties are divided by yellow lines, to allow for differentiation. The whole is surrounded by a pictorial border featuring images of Olympic National Park, Grand Coulee, Mount Rainier, Yakima Canyon, and the Grand Coulee Dam, along with others.

Verso Content

Photographs of Columbia Gorge, Mount Rainier, and Grand Coulee Dam immediately draw the viewer's attention. Small city plans of Spokane, Tacoma, and Seattle also merit a look. However, the panoramas in the bottom quarter of the sheet are exceptional and present Washington as it appears looking both east over the Olympic Peninsula and west over central Washington to Mount Rainier.

Publication History and Census

This map was prepared by Rand McNally and Company, lithographed by the North Pacific Bank Note Company, and published in 1949 by the State of Washington Department of Highways. We note nine examples cataloged in OCLC, however, due to cataloging inconsistencies, it is evident that all nine examples present in the OCLC record for this map do not represent the 1949 edition. Editions were published in 1939, 1941, 1942, 1944, and 1949 (all of which have been digitized by the Washington State Department of Transportation Library) and the map appears to be unchanged while the verso content differs. Nonetheless, the map is scarce on the market.