Monday, December 29, 2014

Saddleback College: topographic map

Click on graphic to enlarge it
     My father, Gunther "Manny" Bauer, was appointed to the Santa Ana Mountains County Water District board in about 1978. He served on the board until the end of 1996. (The agency changed its name to the Trabuco Canyon Water District in the late 80s.)
     Yesterday, Manny noted that he had a cache of cool old maps that he seems to have acquired during his time with the water district. I asked him to locate the maps. Today, I got a good look at 'em. (SEE.)
     Though the maps are part of a 1973 state report (including information about topography, minerals, earthquake faults, and land slides), much of the data they present is from much older data-gathering efforts, some going back to the 20s, some from the 60s or even later (the authors used the best data available to them, some of it old).
     Above is a topographic map, likely created in the mid-sixties (since it depicts the San Diego Fwy, the local stretch of which was finished in 1968), of the area along the freeway from San Juan Capistrano in the south to Saddleback College as it exists today. I've added a few streets (including Avery and Marguerite) that were created since then—plus, of course, the college itself (I used Saddleback's official campus map—it is to scale). Essentially, it's still an old map (my updating additions are pretty obvious), and so it provides a sense of how things once were—at right about the time that our district was conceived. [UPDATE: a local geologist informs me that the map was produced in 1968.]
     Naturally, I had topo data from the land that became Irvine Valley College, too, but its pretty uninteresting—the land is "as flat as Toby's ass," to use one of my dad's old expressions. (I'm afraid to ask who Toby is supposed to be.)

DETAIL: the road at the right/bottom is part of Ladera Ranch, which, natch
was created long after this map was made.
Click on graphic to ENLARGE
DETAIL: the green road (just under Trabuco Ck. Rd.) was called Rosenbaum Rd. 50 or 60 years ago. My father remembers that the Rosenbaum family had a major ranch in the old days: orange orchards. Evidently, they were still involved in disputes over water rights in the 70s.

2 comments:

jrepka said...

The publication date for this map is 1968 -- the founding year for Saddleback -- thus the lack of infrastructure. In 1981 the USGS produced a revised version that included new roads and construction, but the topography was not revised (Google Earth still uses the 1968 topographic model in its program).

Anonymous said...

Thanks

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...