Many decades ago when I was but a youth of about 12, I wanted to be a “mapologist.”
It wasn’t an occupation then, and it’s still not an occupation.
However, there is such a thing as a cartographer….
I’m not sure why a cartographer creates maps instead of carts but I’m sure there’s an etymologist somewhere who can tell us, providing that said etymologist is actually studying words and not etyms. Oh, why does language have to be so complicated?
Recently, without really trying, I found an 1854 map of San Diego hanging on a wall in the historic Davis-Horton House, also known as the Gaslamp Museum. Map looks like this:
The green arrow points to San Diego, “Old Town San Diego State Historic Park” as it is now known.
The red arrow points to “New Town,” founded by Alonzo Horton. Horton thought that San Diego was too far from the waters of the Pacific Ocean and San Diego harbor. So he created New Town about four miles south.
New Town is where downtown San Diego is now, specifically the historic Gaslamp Quarter, so Horton obviously was on to something.
For comparison, following is Google Maps presenting us with the same areas. In 1854, the long water channel running alongside Interstate 8, SeaWorld, and Mission Bay were not there. Picture all of that water removed and you can see how far inland Old Town actually was.
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