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Club Information Map Information Buy/Sell/Trade Maps Miscellaneous
| RMCA - Winter 1997-98 Newsletter PreviewWho Gave Away the First Free Road Maps? - Part III Thus far in attempt to determine who distributed the first free road maps, we have worked our way back from the Gulf Refining Company in 1914, Monarch Refining in 1912, Union Oil and Goodrich in 1910, and the makers of White steam autos from 1906 to 1909, to a Los Angeles auto dealer in 1903. We concluded Part II in the last newsletter by noting that there were a few road maps offered to bicyclists in the late 19th Century, so let's look at the oldest one. Automobiling really took hold and started to grow at the beginning of the 20th Century, but for the preceding twenty years, it was bicycle that offered travelers individual transportation on common roads, and those early cyclists needed road directions to. Those who were interested in long distance travel on bicycles usually joined the League of American Wheelmen (L.A.W.), which promoted the interests of bicyclists in the late 19th Century just like the AAA did for motorists in the 20th Century. If these bicyclists joined the state division of the L.A.W., they were entitled to a road book which had running directions and/or road maps in it. The hitch here was that one had to be a member to get the book free. Of course, there were a few commercially produced road maps for cyclists to, some of which were fairly expensive. ... The Beginning of General Drafting Road Maps General drafting was founded by Otto Gustav Lindberg, a young Finnish immigrant who was born in Russia in 1886. After arriving in the United States in 1907, he took numerous off jobs and eventually ended up in a job as a draftsman. When young Otto saw that the opportunity existed to work independently as a public draftsman, he decided to venture out on his own and in 1909, at the age of 23, opened an office in New York City for, as the door lettering said, "General Draughting." In 1914, he formally incorporated as the General Drafting Co. Mr. Lindberg initially drafted many different types of items, one of which happened to be a variety of specialized maps. One of these specialized maps was the Vermont state map for AAA in 1912. Look at any AAA New England area map into the early 1920's and an inset of a Vermont city is sure to have the initials O.G.L. in the lower right corner. But maps were not the center of his business until 1922. ... Map Sheet Standard (of Indiana), 1926-1979 Deep Rock, 1924-1977-80
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