Back in 1923, Georgia and Florida looked about the same in this Atlas, until you notice, where’s I-75 and I-10? Where are all the roads? Nowhere: those lines are railroads.

Many railroad towns such as Ellaville and Genoa in Florida and Dupont and Haylow in Georgia are depicted, when they aren’t anymore on maps of this scale. Troupville is long gone, because it moved to Valdosta where the railroad was coming: the Atlantic Coast Line, labeled “A.C.L.”, later plus two others, “G.S.”, presumably Georgia Southern, and “G.S.F.”, presumably Georgia Southern and Florida.

South Georgia and North Florida

Amusingly, the Florida map names and draws “Okefinokee Swamp” in Georgia, but the Georgia map does not. The Georgia map shows a couple of lakes instead.

Florida and Georgia

The only river named in the Suwannee River Basin is “Suwanee R.” down at the Gulf.

Georgia

The word “Willacoochee” is written on the Georgia map, but that’s for the town, not the river. The Alapaha, Alapahoochee, Withlacoochee, Little, Santa Fe, and Ichetucknee are not named.

Florida

Some town names are spelled differently: “Allapaha” instead of Alapaha and “Rays Mills” instead of Ray City.

“Liveoak” appears to be all one word, as does “Lakepark”.

Book

These maps are in a copy I have of the 1923 Atlas of the World and Gazeteer, Funk and Wagnalls Company, New York and London, 1923.

1923 Atlas of the World and Gazeteer

Funk and Wagnalls Company, New York and London, 1923

Regions

It was a different world back then between WW I and WW II, aka the interwar period, at the height of the British and French Empires.

Europe

Ireland appears to still be part of the United Kingdom, despite the recent Irish War of Independence.

Germany sprawls from tiny independent Saar to East Prussia, including Danzig and Konigsberg.

Italy includes the hinterland of Trieste (Istria, a peninsula now divided between Slovenia and Croatia).

Russia includes Crimea and the mainland north to the Dnieper River, aka Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Russia took back Crimea in 2014 and is currently trying to add those other two plus Donetsk and Luhansk in the war it started this year.

Central and Southern Asia

1923 was at the height of the British Empire, including everything from Afghanistan to Burma. Baluchistan wasn’t even considered part of Afghanistan; it was direclty part of the British Raj in India.

French Indo-China was at its height, including Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.

Japan claimed Formosa (Taiwan).

Siam, now Thailand, retained its independence.

Northern Africa

The British Empire included much of east Africa (and effective hegemony in Egypt), plus the Gold Coast (later Ghana) and Nigeria in West Africa. But France claimed West Africa from Algeria to Senegal, the Ivory Coast, and Dahomey, plus in Central Africa Ubangi-Shari (now Central African Republic), Gabon, and Congo-Brazzaville.

France also controled former German Togo and Kamerun (now Cameroun).

Spanish Guinea was in between.

The most notorious colony of all was still around, the Belgian Congo (now Zaire).

Italy had stomped into Eritrea and Somalia.

But Abyssina (the Ethiopean Empire) remained independent.

Southern Africa

Portuguese Angola and Mozambique were still around.

The British had colonized most of southern Africa, plus they now controled former German Tanganyika (now Tanzania) and South West Africa (now Namibia).

The French held Madagascar.

Africa

Both Africa maps together illustrate the extent of the colonial partition of Africa after the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885. Many of those lines drawn on maps thousands of miles away are still national boundaries today, because nobody wants to deal with redrawing them.

History still affects us all.

 -jsq, John S. Quarterman, Suwannee RIVERKEEPER®

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