1940 Map of San Juan Bautista

About this map

Mission San Juan Bautista and the nearby Patrick Breen property anchor the eastern edge of this tactical map, where the Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito county lines converge. The landscape is a complex intersection of the Southern Pacific rail lines and the winding Pajaro River, which carves through the Pajaro Gap past Logan and Aromas. The coastal lowlands to the west are defined by the tidal reaches of Elkhorn Slough and Tembladero Slough, while the hills to the north reveal industrial activity at the Sargent Oil Fields. The map documents a dense network of rural infrastructure, including a high concentration of country schools such as Casserly School and Vega School, alongside unique landmarks like the St Francis Orphan Asylum near Watsonville. This survey preserves the era's agricultural and transit patterns before the expansion of modern highways, capturing settlements like Betabel and Old Gilroy in their early 20th-century context.