The Automobile Club of Southern California, or "Auto Club" was founded December 15, 1900 in Los Angeles as one of the nation's first motor clubs dedicated to improving roads, proposing traffic laws and improvement of overall driving conditions.

Within a decade of its creation, the Auto Club was a driving force toward construction of the Ridge Route, the first highway through the Tehachapi Mountains and San Gabriel Mountains to directly link Los Angeles and Bakersfield. The completion of the Ridge Route literally saved the State of California from being split into two separate states at the mountains.

In the 1920s, the Auto Club sent teams of cartographers to survey the state's roads not only for the production of maps, but to create a uniform signing system. The Auto Club posted thousands of porcelain-on-steel traffic signs throughout the state and continued to do so until the State of California took over the task in the early 1950s. The signs were produced by a local company that manufactured porcelain-on-steel bathtubs. A few of these signs remain in service today, though they are extremely rare.

That same decade also saw the construction of the Auto Club's main office on the corner of Figueroa Street and Adams Boulevard. Built in the style (and scale) of an 18th Century Spanish cathedral, the building now serves as the Los Angeles district office. The club's headquarters are now in Santa Ana.

From its opening to just after the start of the Second World War, the building's courtyard served as the site of the Auto Club's annual outdoor festivals which promoted motor vacations and camping. The US military requested that the events be halted after the start of the war and were never revived. During the course of the war, the Auto Club became an active participant in scrap rubber and metal drives and printed numerous posters for the war effort. Among them were messages reminding drivers of the national 35 miles-per-hour speed limit during wartime and to encourage "giving servicemen a lift" whenever one encountered one in uniform hitchhiking for a ride.

Today, the Automobile Club of Southern California is one of California's largest insurance companies and provides coverage for homes, recreational vehicles and watercraft as well as cars and trucks. Affiliated with the American Automobile Association or "AAA," membership is still required but comes with benefits such as free maps, free travel planning, free emergency roadside service, free speedometer testing and free DMV services. Members also receive monthly copies of Westways, a popular magazine devoted to California travel and history that started as Touring Topics in 1909. District offices stretch from Chula Vista near the international border with Mexico to the small Central California town of Porterville. From Central California northward, the AAA itself provides services to ACSC members.

External link

• Official Automobile Club of Southern California website