Yosemite Region Portion of Madera County Oakhurst – Bass Lake – Ahwahnee – North Fork – Coarsegold

An uncommon pictorial map that lovingly celebrates Madera County, California.

This charming pictorial map offers an inviting portrait of the Yosemite region of Madera County as it appeared in the late 1960s. Centered on Oakhurst and extending from Coarsegold and Ahwahnee northward through North Fork and Bass Lake toward Yosemite National Park, the map combines practical local geography with an engaging hand-drawn style. Roads, communities, streams, lakes, mountains, recreational areas, historic sites, and other features are illustrated with careful attention to the verdant landscape (rather than the occasional floods of tourist traffic).

The map was drawn by Jane Judd, a longtime Oakhurst-area artist whose work became closely associated with the Sierra foothills. Judd’s illustrations give the map its distinctive personality, with mountains, forests, waterways, buildings, and other landmarks rendered in a lively pictorial style. Particularly interesting is the map’s deliberate attention to the region’s romanticized past: historic locations and “Old Mine Sites” are identified alongside contemporary communities and roads, while a separate category for “Historic Places (Not in Existence)” preserves the memory of vanished features and settlements like Grub Gulch, Old Miami Mill, and California Mill. The importance of the lumber industry is evident throughout, though Indigenous cultures, wildlife, and the region’s natural scenery are also integral components of the map’s visual narrative.

Published in September 1967 by The Jays, the Oakhurst creative and photographic enterprise associated with Jane Judd and Jack Gyer. The Jays produced locally oriented photographic and artistic material in the Oakhurst area during the 1960s.

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