North Carolina is the arresting title carried atop George F. Cram Company’s 1920 contribution to its Auto Trails and Commercial Survey of the United States, a crisp, traveler-forward portrait of the Tar Heel State at the dawn of motorized mobility. State boundaries are drawn in distinct colors, while counties and principal places glow in green, giving immediate administrative clarity. Red and blue strokes thread across the sheet to distinguish highways and state roads, and major auto trails are further differentiated in varied colors for legibility at a glance. Electric lines stand out in bold red, signaling the new infrastructure binding town and countryside. Relief is rendered with deft hachures that model the state’s lift from the coastal plain to the high, folded west. A Greenwich prime meridian framework quietly underpins the whole.

The George F. Cram Company was a master of practical elegance—an American cartographic house renowned for equipping salesmen, shippers, and adventurous motorists with instruments of reliable decision-making. In this work, Cram’s bias toward usability is unmistakable: a disciplined color system separates functions; carefully lettered symbols identify paved segments and traffic signs; and a clean, standardized longitude leaves no doubt about bearings. The company’s early 20th-century atlases and auto surveys captured a nation pivoting from rails and riverboats to rubber tires, and this map distills that shift for North Carolina. Electric lines in prominent red reveal where commerce and mill villages plugged into the grid, while the hierarchies of roads, from primaries to minor connectors, anticipate the standardized highway networks that would soon dominate American travel.

The state’s human geography is plotted with the confidence of the 1920 census. Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, Durham, and Winston-Salem—epicenters of banking, government, tobacco, and textiles—stand out in green, their roles reinforced by the converging ribbons of highway and auto trail. Fayetteville anchors the Cape Fear corridor, Asheville sits astride mountain approaches, and High Point, Gastonia, and Burlington speak to the industrious Piedmont crescent. Smaller but strategically placed communities—Jacksonville near the coast, Cary at the edge of the capital’s orbit, Mooresville and Monroe along rising trade axes, Sanford at a rail-and-road crossroads—register as beads on threads of movement. County outlines, crisply distinguished, frame this constellation, allowing travelers to translate routes into jurisdictions and markets with ease.

Cram’s hachures give the state’s physiography an almost tactile cadence: the Appalachians flare along the western horizon, their ridges and gaps steering the approaches to Asheville and the French Broad. Eastward, the uplands relax into rolling Piedmont and the sandy terraces of the Coastal Plain, all crosscut by rivers that the map names and respects in routing—Catawba and Yadkin-Pee Dee, Roanoke and Neuse, Tar and Cape Fear. The barrier-island arc of the Outer Banks stands sentinel beyond the sounds, a visual reminder of shoals and storms that shaped inland trade long before paved roads. Inset not required; the main image carries it all—terrain, watersheds, and routes braided together—revealing how topography and transport negotiated one another on the ground.

As a historical document, this map captures a North Carolina in exhilarating transition. Paved-road callouts and traffic-sign notation reveal the early grammar of wayfinding, when standardized symbols were still settling into place. The emphatic depiction of electric lines chronicles the spread of power into mill towns and county seats, foreshadowing the consumer boom of the 1920s. Population figures from the 1920 census translate cartography into demography, helping readers weigh markets and plan itineraries. The Greenwich prime meridian anchors it in a global cartographic standard even as its purpose is profoundly local—getting a salesman to Burlington before dusk or guiding a tourist safely over a mountain grade to Asheville. It is, in short, an exquisite, data-rich snapshot of modernity arriving, mile by mile.

Cities and towns on this map

• Charlotte
• Raleigh
• Greensboro
• Durham
• Winston-Salem
• Fayetteville
• Asheville
• Gastonia
• High Point
• Burlington
• Jacksonville
• Cary
• Mooresville
• Monroe
• Sanford

Notable Features & Landmarks

• State boundaries drawn in distinct colors.
• Electric lines marked prominently in red.
• Highways and state roads displayed in red and blue.
• Principal cities and capitals highlighted in green.
• Major auto trails marked in varied colors for visibility.
• Hachures used to depict relief and terrain features.
• Population figures sourced from the 1920 census noted.
• Traffic signs and paved road information included.
• Use of the Greenwich prime meridian for standardization.

Historical and design context

• Created by George F. Cram Company in 1920, part of the "Auto Trails and Commercial Survey of the United States."
• George F. Cram Company was renowned for producing detailed maps and atlases during the early 20th century, often focusing on facilitating travel and commerce.
• The map illustrates political and physical features including electric lines, state boundaries, highways, and auto trails, providing insights into early 20th-century infrastructure.
• The entire state of North Carolina, including principal cities, counties, and notable physical landmarks.
• Uses color to illustrate various elements (e.g., highways in red and blue, electric lines in red), with counties and cities highlighted in green.
• Reflects the transportation and utility infrastructure of early 20th-century North Carolina, important for understanding historical travel and commerce trends.
• The color-coded routes and boundaries provide a clear differentiation of transport and administrative areas, reflecting the cartographer's emphasis on usability for travelers of the time.

Please double check the images to make sure that a specific town or place is shown on this map. You can also get in touch and ask us to check the map for you.

This map looks great at every size, but I always recommend going for a larger size if you have space. That way you can easily make out all of the details.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

The model in the listing images is holding the 18x24in (45x60cm) version of this map.

The fifth listing image shows an example of my map personalisation service.

If you’re looking for something slightly different, check out my collection of the best old maps to see if something else catches your eye.

Please contact me to check if a certain location, landmark or feature is shown on this map.

This would make a wonderful birthday, Christmas, Father's Day, work leaving, anniversary or housewarming gift for someone from the areas covered by this map.

This map is available as a giclée print on acid free archival matte paper, or you can buy it framed. The frame is a nice, simple black frame that suits most aesthetics. Please get in touch if you'd like a different frame colour or material. My frames are glazed with super-clear museum-grade acrylic (perspex/acrylite), which is significantly less reflective than glass, safer, and will always arrive in perfect condition.

This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.

For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.