Whitlock worked as an " excursion agent " and tour guide soon after her arrival in California , organizing and leading trips to the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon in 1895 and 1896 , among other destinations . She opened a " travel and hotel bureau " in 1903 , in downtown Los Angeles . She was president of the Pacific Coast Travel Club in 1907 . She also ran a card catalog registry and information bureau for Shriners visiting Los Angeles for a national conference in 1907 . She had an office in the '' Los Angeles Times '' building when it was bombed in 1910 , which damaged some of her work in progress . She nonetheless published an extraordinarily detailed " The Official Transportation and City Map " for Los Angeles in 1911 , " the only map containing exclusive electric railway data , as the electric railway officers give no data to other publishers . " Her maps were frequently copied without permission , and she was diligent in her efforts to seek legal remedy . Printer N. Bowditch Blunt was criminally convicted for copying Whitlock 's maps — the first criminal conviction for copyright violation in the United States . Whitlock also brought a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Map and Address Company and the Security Savings Bank for copyright infringement when they sold unauthorized copies of her map . In 1918 she sued the city engineer of Los Angeles , alleging that he had copperplates made from some of her maps without her permission ; the matter settled out of court
bombed in 1910
Los Angeles Times bombing
Laura L. Whitlock