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1943 Map of San Jose

Name: 1943 Topographic Map of San Jose
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1943
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1943

About this map

The Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek anchor this mid-century survey of the Santa Clara Valley, revealing a landscape poised between its agrarian past and urban future. Substantial institutional sites like the Agnew State Hospital and the County Farm occupy large tracts of land north of San Jose, while the marshy northern reaches near Alviso are dominated by extensive Salt Beds and Goose Slough. The rail infrastructure is densely mapped, featuring the Southern Pacific and Western Pacific lines that facilitated the region's burgeoning fruit and industrial economy.

Eastward, the terrain rises sharply into Oak Ridge, where the Calaveras Reservoir sits amidst a network of canyons including Arroyo Hondo. Small satellite communities such as Berryessa, Evergreen, and Campbell appear as distinct clusters, connected by named thoroughfares like Kifer Road and San Felipe Road, prior to the post-war suburban expansion that would eventually merge these independent settlements.