1942 American Automobile Association Pictorial Road Map of Florida

This is a c. 1942 American Automobile Association pictorial road map of Florida. The map depicts the state from Tallahassee and the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean and from Georgia to Key West. Cities and towns throughout the state are labeled, as are major state and national highways. Lakes and rivers throughout Florida are also illustrated, as are several state parks, national forests, and Everglades National Park. The whole is surrounded by an artistically stunning border illustrating nine different tourist sites and historic locations throughout Florida and the ever-popular past times of sunning on the beach and playing golf. Each of the sites featured in the border are also identified on the map by green text boxes. Only a handful of the sites highlighted are still in operation today. The Palatka Ravine Gardens in Palatka, originally constructed by the Works Progress Administration in 1934, are now known as Ravine Gardens State Park, and the Singing Tower , which stand 205 feet, is located in the Bok Tower Gardens north of Lake Wales, Florida. Although time has changed St. Petersburg and Daytona Beach, both are still major tourist destinations that draw millions of tourists per year, and the Overseas Highway is still in operation between Miami and Key West.

The Oriental Gardens in Jacksonville, Marine Studios in Marineland, and Clyde Beatty's Jungle Zoo, located outside Fort Lauderdale, however, no longer exist. The Oriental Gardens were originally started by by George W. Clark, a Riverside resident and botany enthusiast, who began planting his overflow plants on a vacant bluff overlooking the St. Johns River. Eventually, his private 18-acre estate would be opened to the public and from 1937 until 1954, served as a major tourist attraction in Jacksonville known as the Oriental Gardens. Today, few remants of the gardens remain, and most of these are hidden away on private home lots. Clyde Beatty's Jungle Zoo was operated by Clyde Raymond Beatty (June 10, 1903 – July 19, 1965), a popular circus performer and famous television and radio personality, near Fort Lauderdale from December 1939 until 1945, when tightening zoning regulations effectively evicted him from the site. Marine Studios, later known as Marineland, was by far the most successful and longest-lived of the now-defunct tourist attractions highlighted here. Founded in 1938 along Highway A1A south of St. Augustine, Marine Studios operated until the mid-1980s, when it was sold by its founder, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney. Marineland had been the first-of-its-kind, an attraction that brought ocean animals into contact with humanity through oceanariums and several daily shows. The park was reopened in March 2006 after extensive renovations and is now a subsidiary of the Georgia Aquarium.

This map was published by the American Automobile Association in the early 1940s.