Road Maps: Before There Was GPS

Remember foldable paper road maps?

For some of us, the thought of foldable highway maps conjures memories of family road trips where the words, “Let’s stop for a map,” were spoken whenever the family drove into unfamiliar territory.  Parents studied the map for route guidance and then passed the map to those of us in the back seat who yearned for something new to look at during long drives.

Early Drivers Didn’t Need Maps

When people first began driving, there was little need for route guidance. Automobiles were very simple, and people primarily drove around the towns and countryside they knew well. 

But by 1915, the U.S. had more than two million cars, and motorists were beginning to drive from town to town. Maps were needed but they weren’t easy to come by as mapmaking required a great deal of time-consuming and tedious work.

Bicycle Maps Came First

The bicycle craze of the late 19^th century put lots of Americans on the road. As riders ventured farther away from their home bases, bicycle maps came in handy. But most of the information wasn’t transferable to maps for automobiles.

Cyclists could navigate narrow passageways or alleys, and if necessary, riders could carry their bikes across shallow streams. Automobiles could only travel on bigger roads and while they could drive through small rivulets of water, they needed to be careful not to get stuck in mud. Tires on cars made in the early part of the century did not give traction. 

And since there was no master plan for roadways, mapmakers had to create maps on an as-needed basis.

Road Markers Were Also Rare

Often, the best way to navigate was to stop frequently and ask a local resident for directions. Because road markers were rare, a local person’s guidance would likely be punctuated with information about making turns on the street “where the café is” or after “crossing the bridge in the middle of town.”

Many roads had no names at all, and in some parts of the country, roads changed names as they continued into a new county. For that reason, guidance was complicated.

Company-Sponsored Route Guides

Eventually companies like car manufacturers and travel associations began creating “route guides” with advertising placed prominently throughout.  

For a person to make a guide required that they have an automobile with a reliable odometer. Distances needed to be accurate. At least two people needed to be in the car traveling the route. The driver noted landmarks and specific mileages while the passenger carefully wrote down the directions. Andrew McNally II, son of a founder of Rand McNally & Co. created the Rand McNally Chicago to Milwaukee Photo-Auto Guide of 1909 on his honeymoon with the aid of his new bride.

With these early guides, the directions were often similar to what a local person would tell a driver. “After 2.7 miles, make a right turn at the café with the red roof.” (If the café burned down, the guidance became unclear or confusing.) Better guides documented the more complex turns with photographs.

Because it was clear that guideposts were needed, some guidebook makers began erecting their own signs along popular routes. 

Solutions Begin

By the 1920s, there were more roads, more markers, more cars, and more confusion.

Wisconsin was the first state to come up with a solution. In 1920 they established a method for numbering their roads. Soon other states began to follow their lead. By the end of the 1920s, almost 76,000 miles of U.S. roads had been given a number designation.  Odd numbers were used for north-south roads; even numbers were selected for roads running east and west.    

Maps as Promotional Tools

During the 1910s, gasoline companies began opening service stations so drivers could buy gasoline. The Gulf Refining Company established one of the nation’s  first drive-in gasoline service stations in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  (Up until this time, drivers purchased gasoline in five-gallon containers. (See “When Gasoline-Powered Cars Were First Used, Where Did They Get Gasoline?”) 

Advertising man William Akin suggested an idea for promoting these businesses. He told Gulf to buy and give away local maps for each area where they had stations.  By 1920, Gulf was giving away 16 million maps of the eastern U.S.  Soon other gas companies followed. 

But as the years went by, the availability of free road maps at gas stations declined. Drivers were generally commuting on a well-known route and didn’t need a map. And because of the oil embargoes in the 1970s, oil companies cut back on promotional items. A free map was no longer going to inspire consumer loyalty.

Maps continued to be made available at gas stations and bookstores, but they had to be paid for. 

Today we rarely think to take a map with us. Though identifying a location on a map is enormously helpful in getting us oriented, today most people are perfectly comfortable simply following the GPS technology.    

A Different Map: Lowell Thomas War Map

During World War II, Americans were desperate for more information about the war, about the troops, and about where their loved ones might be. As a result, maps of the areas where the fighting was taking place were created and distributed in the same manner as road maps. 

Sunoco was the sponsor of a newscast hosted by Lowell Thomas (1892-1981), so he became the “face” of the Sunoco war map published in 1942.  The maps unfolded to reveal four full-color maps on two sides of a 20 x 26-inch sheet. 

Over time the war maps spawned offshoots. In 1944 Sunoco distributed an “air lanes map” with pictures and descriptions of American, British, Russian, German, and Japanese airplanes.

Lowell Thomas was the perfect guide for Americans following the war. He was a pioneer in journalism and was among the first to report from the battlefield during World War I, and he was the first to enter Germany after the war to gather eyewitness accounts. His Sunoco-sponsored program began on NBC in 1930 but soon switched to CBS. Prior to 1947, he was an employee of Sunoco, not NBC or CBS.  Until 1952 he was also the voice of Movietone News until 1952. 

Fast Facts about Early Roads

• The first pedestrian safety island was created in San Francisco in 1907.
• The first road to have a painted midline dividing the lanes was a road in Michigan, and the line was painted in 1911.
• The first electric traffic signal was used in Cleveland in 1914. See “Garrett Morgan: Successful Inventor of Safety Hood/Traffic Signal.”
• The first “no left turn” sign was put up on a busy street in Buffalo in 1916.
• The first school safety patrol program began in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1920.

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