1958 Gousha Map of Florida

This is a 1958 H.M. Gousha Company highway map of Florida. Distributed by Cities Service (now CITGO), travelers and locals would both have benefited from its detail and clarity.

A Closer Look

Depicting from Apalachicola National Forest to the Atlantic Ocean and from southern Georgia to Key West, Florida's road network appears in detail, with national, state, and local roads differentiated. Lakes and rivers are illustrated in blue, as are 'other roads', making the state appear at first glance to have many more rivers than it does. Distances between cities are provided. Historic sites, tourist destinations, and other places of interest are made prominent with red text. An index of counties and a partial list of cities and towns appears along the left border, while a key is situated in the upper right. An inset focusing on western Florida from the Alabama border to the Apalachicola National Forest appears in the lower left. A smaller inset, also in the lower left, details the region from Mobile to Pensacola.

Verso Content

Six maps appear on the verso. The largest details Miami with an index of parks, airports, points of interest, yacht clubs, golf courses, and islands and keys. The other five focus on Tampa and St. Petersburg, St. Augustine, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, Jacksonville, and the Republic of Cuba.

Publication History and Census

This map was created and published by the H.M. Gousha Company in 1958 and distributed by Cities Service, an oil company now known as CITGO. Gousha published annual editions of their highway map of Florida, and it was distributed by several different companies, including Cities Service, Shell, and Billups. We have been unable to locate any other examples of the 1958 edition that was distributed by Cities Service, but an OCLC entry for the 1958 Gousha highway map of Florida exists (OCLC 953867707) but only directly references Shell Oil. It is likely that, due to cataloging inconsistencies, at least one of the 22 examples cataloged in OCLC is the same edition as the present map.