Earliest map memories, early map resources

[brianreynolds]

Growing up in suburban Detroit, I was blessed with lots of sources for maps.  For instance, my father was a member of AAA (mostly for the auto insurance and for road service, I think), and he was quite willing to support my map habit.  When he was going to the AAA office, he would invite me along, and I could request any maps I wanted, to a limited degree anyway.  The AAA map of Southeastern Michigan was always a favorite of mine.

There is a five-county area (Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Livingston) for which there is a regional parks authority, begun shortly after WWII.  The Huron-Clinton (for the defining river basins) Metropolitan Authority published high-quality maps with great visual appeal for their use of contrasting pastel colors to distinguish the counties, and bright colors for the incorporated municipalities within counties.   If I recall correctly, they were issued on an every-other-year basis.  In the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, there would be big changes from issue to issue representing the evolving Interstate Highway system, and related changes to the trunk line roads, and the newly incorporated cities..

When I was old enough to ride my bike across town, there were dozens of gas stations within range, and most of them had a rack of maps that were given out free, intended for paying fuel customers.  I took advantage of their generosity early and often.

One Christmas, an uncle who knew of my interest in geography gave me several years worth of National Geographic magazines, and the maps that came with them.   There never was a better gift.  The maps alone were a treasure.  The magazines offered great articles and photos.  But there was a bonus.  In every NGeo magazine was a slew of travel advertisements, including one from virtually every state tourism office.  Fill out the coupon, mail it in, and receive an official state highway map, and possibly other promotional materials.  Yes, I did.  Many times.

I wonder if anyone else remembers this one.  Gulf Oil had a promotional program where a customer could write to one of their TourGuide offices (I'm not 100% sure I am remembering the name correctly), tell them your proposed vacation origin and destination, and they would select the optimum route, then package and ship all of the maps you would need, free!!.  I know that one of their offices was in Atlanta, but I think there were a few others scattered around.  Yes, I did.  I composed fantasy vacations, and requested such packages at least a few times, and from different offices, I think.  If you have (or have access to) old Gulf Oil maps from that era, the program was prominently promoted right on the maps themselves.

For my entire youth, and several decades thereafter, I thought my peculiar obsession was mine alone.  The internet changed all that.

[bandit957]

I remember the old Metro Graphic Arts maps, and how they put out a Graphic Street Guide of Northern Kentucky (in "convenient book form").

One of my very earliest memories involves looking at one of their street maps, which had to have been when I was about 2, so it would have been about 1975. I guess my parents showed me this map just because. I remember laying on my back and looking at this map and not really understanding it, since I was only about 2.

Also, my grandfather had an old Rand McNally Road Atlas from the '60s. I found this atlas at my grandparents' house when I was very young. I remember the Chicago area map had a north-pointing compass in Lake Michigan which I always called "the light bulb" because it was shaped like one.

[hbelkins]

Growing up in suburban Detroit, I was blessed with lots of sources for maps.  For instance, my father was a member of AAA (mostly for the auto insurance and for road service, I think), and he was quite willing to support my map habit.  When he was going to the AAA office, he would invite me along, and I could request any maps I wanted, to a limited degree anyway.  The AAA map of Southeastern Michigan was always a favorite of mine.

(snip)

One Christmas, an uncle who knew of my interest in geography gave me several years worth of National Geographic magazines, and the maps that came with them.   There never was a better gift.  The maps alone were a treasure.  The magazines offered great articles and photos.  But there was a bonus.  In every NGeo magazine was a slew of travel advertisements, including one from virtually every state tourism office.  Fill out the coupon, mail it in, and receive an official state highway map, and possibly other promotional materials.  Yes, I did.  Many times.

(snip)

I wonder if anyone else remembers this one.  Gulf Oil had a promotional program where a customer could write to one of their TourGuide offices (I'm not 100% sure I am remembering the name correctly), tell them your proposed vacation origin and destination, and they would select the optimum route, then package and ship all of the maps you would need, free!!.  I know that one of their offices was in Atlanta, but I think there were a few others scattered around.  Yes, I did.  I composed fantasy vacations, and requested such packages at least a few times, and from different offices, I think.  If you have (or have access to) old Gulf Oil maps from that era, the program was prominently promoted right on the maps themselves.

For my entire youth, and several decades thereafter, I thought my peculiar obsession was mine alone.  The internet changed all that.

I had a great uncle who lived in Michigan (Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti area) who was a AAA member. He would bring maps and TripTiks, often marked with routes from some of his vacations.

I, too, filled out coupons for free official maps from other states.

And I remember when the oil companies would provide routing services for gas card holders. My dad had cards from Chevron and Shell, and anytime we'd take a trip, he'd request routes from them. My mom's first cousin (more like an uncle to me) had a Gulf card, so we'd get him to request the routing through Gulf. I always found it interesting to compare the routes provided by the three different services. They didn't always agree.

[Pete from Boston]

We had a box, wrapped completely in map, full of gas station maps from everywhere from New England to Venezuela, most from the era of "Discover America Best By Car."  I cherished that box, and read those maps like some kids read books.  To my horror, I think that box and the maps got discarded in recent years by someone who had no idea of my attachment to it.

Regardless, things come and go, but the influence remains.

[theline]

My Dad never belonged to AAA, so I almost never saw their maps when I was young, though I learned to enjoy them later. Like Brian, I took full advantage of the free maps from service stations. While Dad refueled, I browsed the maps for any I didn't already have. My favorite was the Sohio map of Ohio. It was a huge tri-fold map. I had to get the latest one every year.

I also wrote to the tourism agency in many states, requesting the state highway map and other tourism literature. I generally preferred the official maps, maybe because they were "official." I assumed that meant they were more accurate. Back in those pre-internet days, it could be hard to get an accurate name and address for the tourism bureau, so I generally guessed: Tourism Bureau, State of Whatever, Capital City, State. That worked amazingly well.

We subscribed to National Geographic, and I devoured their maps. Although I liked them all, I always preferred US maps. I guess it was because that was because these were places we had been to or could reasonably expect to drive to. When I was a child, other parts of the world seemed too distant for me to ever hope to get to.

[sdmichael]

The first real map I ever had was a 1980's ACSC Los Angeles and Vicinity map. Being interested in geology at a young age, I saw the "San Andreas Rift Zone" on the map and thought that was cool.

[empirestate]

When I was 10 we moved to a new neighborhood. Riding my bike around the area, I accidentally took the wrong street to get home (I was a block too far south). I immediately resolved to look at a map to learn my way around, and the rest is history. It was far from my first time looking at a map, but it was the first time I did so for a practical, applicable purpose; before that, it was just browsing world atlases and Rand McNallies, not really connecting them directly to my immediate surroundings.

As it happens, the map I first acquired was the kind given out free at the bank; it was 15 years out of date and comprised more paper street information than actual field data. I think that may have given me an unconscious persuasion toward historical cartography.

In later years, I spent many a weekend at the public library, where they had the complete set of USGS topos for the state, bound into twenty or so volumes. My father was an administrator there, and he saw to it that when the library later discarded a huge batch of topos, consisting of at least a state's worth of obsolete editions, they wound up in my possession. They're still there, awaiting being sorted and catalogued. It's possible I even have something to add to the USGS's own historical map scanning project...

[roadman]

My parents had a well worn 1948 Rand McNally Road Atlas that I discovered about the age of four, and was absolutely facinated with as soon as I picked it up.  By the age of six or seven, I had gotten so proficient at reading road maps (we had a large collection of gas station maps for mostly northeastern and mid-eastern states dated from the mid-1960s through the early 1970s) that I was the only other family member my father would trust with both route planning and taking care of the maps (as well as holding the toll tickets) on long trips down the East Coast.

[bassoon1986]

One of my earliest map memories is going on a family trip to Hot Springs, AR, Eureka Springs, AR, and Branson, MO when I was 5. I had a kids Rand McNally map book. Each page or set of pages had a map of the state and the page next to it had kids activities like a word find, crossword, or fun facts relating to that state. My grandmother told me later when I was older how she was shocked that I could tell her upon returning our exact route up there and back without looking back at the map.

[pianocello]

I remember when I was about 3 or 4, I would sit on the floor with a Rand McNally atlas finding out where routes went by tracing them across the country with my finger. In particular, I remember following US-6 because of both of its endpoints. The Cape Cod end was cool, and the Bishop end was confusing to me at the time ("Why would they end a cross-country route just barely across the California border?").

[jeffandnicole]

My memories include mostly looking at the maps of my county, which then broke the individual towns down to their own pages.  I could see all the streets, plus all the 'paper' streets that were planned but hadn't been constructed (and in most cases, never were).

Since my small neighborhood includes a few of these paper streets, it always invoked interest for me.  Where several streets were planned, back in the 1960's a 9 hole golf course had bought the land and used the land to become a traditional 18 hole course.

Growing up in NJ, I missed out on the gas station freebies since there was no reason to get out of the car while fueling up.  In most cases, gas stations didn't have convenience stores attached anyway.

(Edited to correct "lane" to "land"!)

[BamaZeus]

My grandmother was a travel agent, so she would get the AAA booklets for a region that had maps within them.  I still have a tattered 1981 or 82 Rand McNally atlas still sitting at home.  I still also have a stack of old gasoline maps from the 70's and early 80's from our various travels.

[signalman]

I don't remember exactly how old I was when I first became fascinated with maps.  I'm guessing I was 4 or 5.  I distinctly remember having a decent collection of official state highway maps and local county atlases by the time I was 7 though.  I'm sure it began on road trips with my parents.  They would grab a map for me from the welcome center to keep me occupied and to help me track our progress in a given state.  Before I knew it, I was reading them because I truly enjoyed them.

Growing up in NJ, I missed out on the gas station freebies since there was no reason to get out of the car while fueling up.  In most cases, gas stations didn't have convenience stores attached anyway.

I know where you were going with this, but before the early 70s all states had full service gasoline.  Even though I wasn't alive, I'm sure they were available at stations in NJ as well.  In fact, I remember my dad telling me that they were.  He too enjoys maps, but nearly to the extent that I do.

[roadfro]

Our family didn't travel much, so we didn't have a whole lot of traditional maps in the car or house.

My earliest map resources actually came from the local phone book. In Las Vegas, the phone books would have a bunch of info sections which included: things to do in town, seating layouts of local venues & stadiums, campus maps for UNLV and the community college campuses, and maps of the city with street index. The new phone book came out in January and July of each year, and I would often spend quite some time perusing the new maps to see how much they were updated from the last edition.