So Zazzle is doing 50% off all posters (use code ZAZZLEPOSTER), and they sent me an email promo tailored to their historic posters and, long story short, I ordered a giant print, on canvas and framed, of San Diego in 1876 (pictured). Proceeding in the wrong sequence, I followed up my order with some research into the print.

Turns out the Library of Congress has the original print, and it’s availble as a 8720×6048px jpg (12mb). They also have another high-res photo from 1915.

Along the way, I learned a couple interesting tidbits from the Library:

Over 300 years later, gold miner Pringle Shaw described San Diego in his 1857 book Ramblings in California as:

“a favorite resort for horse stealers and suspicious looking greasers…chiefly from its remoteness and the uncertain communication with the more civilized districts…[The climate resembles] the balmiest portions of Italy…In ‘54 but one physician existed in the place, and he died of a broken-heart, occasioned, it was said, by a want of practice. He complained…of the citizens’ obstinacy in adhering to robust health.”

And:

By 1888, Harriet Harper observed a more refined San Diego. In her Letters from California, she describes San Diego as:

“curled up in the arms of her beautiful bay…[with] long lines of yellow graveled streets… many wooden houses…[and] utter innocence of flower and foliage…. An electric railway runs past my windows; steam motors take you in any direction. The principal streets have electric lights and cement pavements, and there is an encouraging amount of building going on…
all conditions are favorable for a future great city.”

So yeah. Perhaps I could have gotten it printed myself cheaper (though really with the half-off, I’m not even sure of that). But hurrah for the Library of Congress. I’m sure there are many, many more cartographic wonders ahoy.