L.A. Bay Region 1965-2010 on Auto Club Maps

Old Maps can be a viewing glass into the past:

Highway One was officially opened on Dec. 1, 1973 and part of the project was a spur highway to beautiful Bahia de los Angeles, 40 miles to the east of the Transpeninsular Highway.

The 1974 Auto Club of Southern California map does not show any new road construction to L.A. Bay from the Punta Prieta Parador (rest stop/ travel services, about 8 miles north of the village of Punta Prieta). However, in July of 1974 we drove to L.A. Bay over the new, unpaved roadbed.

In July, 1976 we again drove to Bahia de los Angeles on the new road and paving had begun, but ended in about 3 miles (just out of sight of the parador on Hwy. 1. Crews were working on the paving beyond that point and we drove on parallel detours for several miles.

The next trip south to L.A. Bay was in 1983, and the road was paved but the thin asphalt was already breaking apart and by my next trips in 1984 and 1985, it was pretty bad.

With the Esaclera Nautica project of the early to mid 2000's, the L.A. Bay highway was totally repaved and with a few paved turnouts added (perhaps for the boat ferry to pull over and allow the cars trapped behind, to pass?).

No date on this old one, but it was one I marked places we spent the night during our trips in 1965-1967, so I call it a 1965 map:



1974, (map from Barry A) was the first one to show a completed Hwy. 1 and the last one to use the old format for the peninsula from El Progreso and Okie Landing south to Cabo San Lucas. On the reverse side was a high detail map of those points north to the border, and sadly that was the last year for it, too.



1975, the first Auto Club map to make the entire peninsula one scale with half on one side and the other half on the other. The road was not paved more than 3 miles even in mid 1976, but the Club anticipated a quick job and they got punked:



1978:



1980, this one has my notes of the 1981 Baja 1000 race course with checkpoint mileage. This is the the only one I have that shows the Auto Club showing the lack of pavement in part of the road to L.A. Bay, but I recall others before it was first repaved, that also didn't last long:



1987, shows the new graded road to Punta San Francisquito from Bahia de los Angeles:



1989:



1990, the old road south of Bahia de los Angeles is removed from the map (it is still there, and newer editions replaced the northern half of it):



1996:



2010:





[Edited on 10-29-2013 by David K]

Bryan McKenzie just posted a few signs along the way in or out of L.A. Bay... all say Hwy. 1... as before. At Chapala, the San Felipe road is also marked as Hwy. 1 (instead of 5)... In San Felipe, near the airport, Hwy. 5 is marked as Hwy. 3!

Hola DK