Welcome to the Atlas of American Racetracks! I started the site because I am interested in the history of horse racing in the U.S. and what kind of presence and influence racetracks have in our cultural and built environment. The goal is to document where all the horse racetracks in this country (thoroughbred, standardbred, quarter horse, and those that do or did some combination) have been. Also, I love maps, and showing all the track locations on a map makes understanding the spread and influence of the sport easier and more effective. I hope you will be intrigued and I hope that if you have knowledge and photos to add to the project, you will!
I will try to add a map for one state per month, so keep an eye on the site to see what’s next…
Congratulations on an ambitious project that will serve the entire community! I hope many others will contribute. A comment on your methodology: Early Jeppson and other aviation charts relied heavily on race tracks for navigation (as do current publications). If you can locate copies of those early charts, perhaps in U.S. Postal Service archives they should show major race tracks, especially in larger urban areas.
Thanks, this is a very interesting possible source! It could be good particularly for the 1920s-30s when many states don’t have the best topographic map coverage.