Map and brochure, folding, California Automobile Tours, map of Cal one side, scenic photos reverse, cover full color graphic of Hotel Oakland Lake Merritt, Worthington Gates. Copyright 1914 From the History Information Station: Object: Map, "California Automobile Tours, Compliments of Hotel Oakland." 1913. History: The Hotel Oakland, at 13th and Harrison Streets, issued this brochure for visitors to the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915. The packet contains several maps. The map of the Oakland region, "the sunny side of the Bay," has several local tours outlined. One took visitors along the ridge of the hills as far north as the Arlington in Kensington, another guided you south along the waterfront. Another map outlines several extended tours around the state. One went to Yosemite National Park, where tourists could see the Hetch-Hetchy valley just as work on its giant dam was beginning. Another trip took visitors down the coast to visit the state's famous missions; the map has photographs of all of them to entice the visitor. Love at first sight: California and the early automobile. Californians fell in love with the automobile almost at once. The Northern and Southern California Auto Clubs were both formed in 1900. Far from remaining mere curiosities, cars quickly became accepted here. After the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco, the Overland Monthly applauded them, saying that "without the aid of the automobile, the damage and suffering would have been immeasurably increased." By 1910 eight percent of the cars registered in the nation were in California alone. The state Department of Engineering had begun to map a network of roads between the county seats and the large cities, and the first highway bonds were issued in that year. In 1912 the first paved roads appeared, and in 1915 the state issued its first driver's licenses. By 1920, at the end of the First World War, there were 600,000 cars in the state, waiting for the great oil finds at Signal Hill and Huntington Beach to "rev up" and get on the road!