Vintage Los Angeles Map Shows What to Do in the "Wonder City of America"

The Big Map Blog scores again with this beautiful illustrated vintage map of Los Angeles that shows all the landmarks, major businesses, and attractions.

The map was done by K M Leuschner, and was meant to appeal to children. The style, as the Big Map Blog points out, "was to become a pretty common idiom," considering more contemporary all-purpose illustrated maps.

A close look at some of the spots highlighted on the map reveal how oil, cars, movies, and manufacturing were big business in the early 1930s, and that when folks went to play, they liked to do it at all manner of clubs: Golf, Country, Beach, and, yes, even Breakfast. Down in San Pedro, the lighthouse is at Point Firmin (I guess we can't exactly call it a typo), and over in Santa Monica you can take nude sun baths. Piers dot the coastline, airports are small and regional (nope, no LAX yet), the hillside community between Echo Park and Silver Lake is called Edendale, and the valley, well, it's mostly ranches and fields at this point, so the map doesn't quite make it over the hill. Wild animals were yours to see for the price of admission on the east side, at the Ostrich Farm and the Wild Animal Farm.

We've pulled out some of our favorite spots of yesteryear and today, many of which we've taken a deeper look at in our LAistory series. You can download the full map (it's a huge file) from the Big Map Blog for your own perusal. Happy exploring!