Rand McNally history

The shop did big business with the forerunner of the Chicago Tribune, and in 1859 Rand and McNally were hired to run the Tribune's entire printing operation.

In 1868, the two men, along with Rand's nephew George Amos Poole, established Rand McNally & Co. and bought the Tribune's printing business.

In 1870, the company expanded into printing business directories and an illustrated newspaper, the People's Weekly.

According to company lore, during the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, Rand McNally quickly had two of the company's printing machines buried in a sandy beach of Lake Michigan, and the company was up and running again only a few days later.

The first Rand McNally map, created using a new cost-saving wax engraving method, appeared in the December 1872 edition of its Railroad Guide.

Rand McNally became an incorporated business in 1873; with Rand as its president, McNally as vice president, and George Poole as treasurer.

The Business Atlas, containing maps and data pertinent to business planning, was first published in 1876.

The Trade Book department was established in 1877, publishing such titles as The Locust Plague in the United States.

Rand McNally began publishing educational maps in 1880 with its first line of maps, globes, and geography textbooks, soon followed by a world atlas.

Also in 1894, the company opened an office in New York City headed by Caleb S. Hammond, who later started his own map company, C. S. Hammond & Co.

Rand McNally published its first road map, the New Automobile Road Map of New York City & Vicinity, in 1904.

In 1910, the company acquired the line of Photo-Auto Guides from G.S. Chapin, which provided photographs of routes and intersections with directions.

One of its cartographers, John Brink, invented a system that was first published in 1917 on a map of Peoria, Illinois.

In 1920, Rand McNally began publishing road maps for the Gulf Oil Company, to be freely distributed at its service stations.

The Goode's School Atlas, named for its first editor, Doctor J. Paul Goode, was published in 1923.

The Rand McNally Auto Chum, later to become the ubiquitous Rand McNally Road Atlas, debuted in 1924.

By 1930, Rand McNally had two major road map competitors, General Drafting and Gousha, the latter of which was founded by a former Rand McNally sales representative.

The first Rand McNally Travel Store was opened in New York City in 1937.

Rand McNally moved its headquarters from Chicago to suburban Skokie, Illinois in 1952.

The company opened its Versailles, Kentucky, book publishing plant in 1962 with 300,000 square feet (28,000 m) and 23 employees.

In 1980, Rand McNally sold its educational publishing operations to Houghton Mifflin.

Rand McNally began creating maps digitally in 1982.

In 1989, Rand McNally donated its extensive collection of maps to the Newberry Library.

In 1994, the plant was the first to implement a new Kodak computer-to-plate printing system.

Now in possession of Gousha's archives as well, Rand McNally donated that map archive to the Newberry in late 2002.