Mapsco
Encyclopedia
Mapsco was a privately-held publisher of map
s and atlas
es, and was based in Addison, Texas
. Universal Map Group, LLC, an affiliate of Kappa Media Group
, Inc. acquired the assets of Mapsco, Inc. from Dallas based Rupe Investment Corp. in March, 2010. Rupe Investment Corp. had owned Mapsco, Inc. since 1989.
Mapsco was started by Milton Boyd Keith, owner of several Dallas, Texas
, florist shops. Impetus for the first Dallas Mapsco began in 1948 when Keith's drivers kept getting lost, and he decided to make a street atlas booklet for them. Keith spent four years appealing to local government entities to obtain current mapping, but was never successful. Finally, in 1951, Keith approached the Dallas City Building Inspection Division, to obtain mapping data. Their maps were the most accurate produced at that time, but had no index. The building inspectors at that time just knew where everything was by memory. Keith obtained the BID maps from the city and began to work in the back of the flower shop at 3323 Oak Lawn Avenue producing an indexed street map. His shop manager, Lily Kendrick, was instrumental in the laborious process of paging and indexing the city of Dallas into a booklet. The first Mapsco Product, the Dallas Street guide, was printed in 1952 with 3,000 copies produced. The original book covered Dallas, and the Park Cities, with insets for Carrollton and Garland. At first, the book was never intended to be sold to the public, and was only to be used by Keith's large fleet of flower delivery drivers. Soon, other flower shops began asking Keith and his employees for copies of the books to aid them in their deliveries as well.
From 1953 to 1955, the Dallas Mapsco was made with a glued back in order to save costs on production. These first few years also saw the production of Mapsco's first product outside of Dallas, and it was not Fort Worth, Texas
, but was Houston, Texas
. In the mid 50s Mapsco became the first company to make a Houston street atlas. The endeavor ended unfortunately when the glued backs of the Houston maps disintegrated in the humid air of that city - and Mapsco has not made any Houston maps since. For the first few years, Mapscos were not available to the general public. It was created specifically for business and delivery purposes, and sales were slow until 1956 when the city of Dallas bought 300 books for their fire and ambulance services. In 1955, Mapsco adopted a Roman military style indexing system, with singular letters arranged in a grid over the streets. In Dallas, the grid index has not changed since then. At that time, the city was a bewildering array of street names that matched streets in yet unannexed areas, which lead to a lot of confusion. Mapsco was the only accurate map of the newly-sprawling Sunbelt metropolis. By the late 1950s, having a Mapsco became a status symbol.
In 1956, Dallas Mapscos began to be sold to the general public from the flower shop. For sales, they hired homeless people off the street. A few books were given to the new "salesman" and if he sold them, he could come back and get some more. If he never came back, they were only out a few books. In 1957, Milton Boyd Keith died and his widow asked his nephew to take over the business. Keith's nephew did not perpetuate the Mapsco but instead took the map bases and formed his own company, called LO-KAT-IT. Keith's widow died soon after and the Mapsco name all but died. It was about this time that Lily Kendrick, the erstwhile flower shop manager, along with her son Choyce Kendrick, formed a rival company to utilize their mapmaking skills and called it Handymap. The first Handymap was produced in late 1957 and was more accurate than the rival LO-KAT-IT, and undercut its sales. Handymap and the Kendricks were able to acquire the Mapsco naming rights from the Keith family and the nefarious nephew eventually got out of the map business.
On December 5, 1957, Lily Kendrick became the President of Handymap, making it one of Dallas' first companies to be headed by a woman. Milton Boyd Keith's adopted son Donald became Vice President, and Lily's son Choyce became the Treasurer. Choyce had ten years in the air conditioning business and was unprepared for the challenges of mapmaking. The Dallas Mapsco, now with the Handymap name on the cover, continued to be produced. With the "succession crisis" now resolved, Mapscos continued to be made in the back of the flower shop for the remainder of the 50s and 60s. In 1959, the plastic spiral binding was changed to a metal wire binding, which continues in use to this day. Donald Keith sold his stock in the company to Lily in 1959, and the founding Keith family exited the map business. Also in that year, Mapsco acquired its main in-town rival, known as JIFFYMAP. The company paid $5,000 for the maps and name.
In 1964, Mapsco expanded the Dallas product and sold it out of the flower shop on Oak Lawn Avenue. In the early 60s, the Dallas Mapsco cost $4.50 each or $3.99 for pre-orders. Additionally, Rand McNally
maps and other globe and map products were sold. That year, the company reported a 30% increase in sales over the previous year. Lily retired in 1965 and left the company operations to her son, Choyce, and his wife Frances. In 1970, the company finally outgrew the flower shop and moved to dedicated headquarters at 1644 Irving Blvd in Dallas. The next year, in 1971, Handymap released the first edition of the Fort Worth street guide - the second product in Mapsco's lineup. The early 70s saw Mapsco's sales expand beyond its own store to various retail outlets like gas stations and convenience stores. The energy crisis of 1973 spurned Mapsco sales even further, when oil companies could no longer afford to give out free road maps. Larger sales brought a bigger company, and in 1979 the first profit-sharing plan was enacted.
On March 31, 1981 Handymap changed its name back to Mapsco, officially, and the "Handymap" name came off the book covers for good. On August 3 of that year Mapsco opened its first retail outlet at Preston Road and Forest Lane in North Dallas
. By the early 80s, a Dallas Mapsco cost $10.95 and the book had about 18,000 streets in it. Each year, there were about 750 changes to the Dallas book compared to Fort Worth which had 40% less. In 1984, due to a personal agreement, Choyce Kendrick and Mapsco produced the first Louisville, Kentucky
street atlas and it became Mapsco's third book product. Also that year the company topped 100 sales outlets selling Mapsco books - and for the first year sold out of all Dallas and Fort Worth atlases. By the late 80s, Dallas police were reporting that Dallas Mapsco street atlases were the most stolen item from unlocked cars. The police department began a program to educate people to lock their cars so their Mapscos would not get stolen. In 1986, Mapsco needed even more space and moved to a large facility at 5308 Maple Avenue, the site also included a new retail store. In 1989, Choyce Kendrick retired from Mapsco and the company left the Kendrick family and was purchased by Dallas-based Rupe Investment Corp.
Mapsco's fourth street guide, Austin, Texas
, started publication in 1993 and sold for $23.95. The first book was awkward and did not sell well, but by 1999 the Austin Mapsco was selling out. The next atlas, covering Ellis and Johnson Counties, came out the next year. This was the first suburban Dallas book and was made specifically for traffic related to the cancelled Superconducting Super Collider
project. In 1993, the Fort Worth Star Telegram noted that "the Mapsco name... almost certainly equals that of Coca-Cola and McDonald's to DFW residents... the name has become a generic catch-all for local street directories." In 1994, practically every taxi, fire truck, police car, bus, and courier truck had a Dallas Mapsco inside. In March 1994, Rupe Investment purchased Pierson Graphics in Denver, Colorado
. Pierson operated independently for several years, but eventually was merged with Mapsco. Street atlases of Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, and other regional products started to be published by Mapsco. Also in 1994, Mapsco began a multi-million dollar project to update its mapping to a computerized process. In 1995, Mapsco acquired rights to publish El Paso
, Ciudad Juárez
and Las Cruces, New Mexico
streets guides - thereby expanding into New Mexico and Mexico. In September 1996, Mapsco purchased the Ferguson Map Company in San Antonio, Texas
and began taking over the reins by publishing a San Antonio street atlas.
In 1996 the first Mapsco CD-ROM
was produced, and in 1997 the Dallas street guide was the first to be completely digitally produced. In 1998, the Dallas and Fort Worth Street guides sold for $31.95. Since that time, more new street guides have been produced. These include all of the DFW metroplex and exurban areas, all of Central Texas and the Texas Hill Country
, Oklahoma City
and Tulsa
. In 2000, Mapsco donated its entire archive to the University of Texas at Arlington
. In 2001, Mapsco moved the corporate headquarters from the Maple Avenue location to 4181 Centurion Way in Addison, Texas
.
, New Mexico
, Oklahoma
, Arkansas
, Louisiana
, North Carolina
, and Kentucky
.
Map
A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....
s and atlas
Atlas
An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a map of Earth or a region of Earth, but there are atlases of the other planets in the Solar System. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats...
es, and was based in Addison, Texas
Addison, Texas
Addison is a city in Dallas County, Texas . The population was 14,166 at the 2000 census, and 15,737 according to a 2009 estimate. Addison is a northern suburb of Dallas...
. Universal Map Group, LLC, an affiliate of Kappa Media Group
Kappa Publishing Group
Kappa Publishing Group, Inc. is a Blue Bell, Pennsylvania based publishing company concentrating on adult puzzle books and magazines as well as children's magazines and maps. It is a private company founded in 1955 with $11.5 million in annual sales....
, Inc. acquired the assets of Mapsco, Inc. from Dallas based Rupe Investment Corp. in March, 2010. Rupe Investment Corp. had owned Mapsco, Inc. since 1989.
History
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
, florist shops. Impetus for the first Dallas Mapsco began in 1948 when Keith's drivers kept getting lost, and he decided to make a street atlas booklet for them. Keith spent four years appealing to local government entities to obtain current mapping, but was never successful. Finally, in 1951, Keith approached the Dallas City Building Inspection Division, to obtain mapping data. Their maps were the most accurate produced at that time, but had no index. The building inspectors at that time just knew where everything was by memory. Keith obtained the BID maps from the city and began to work in the back of the flower shop at 3323 Oak Lawn Avenue producing an indexed street map. His shop manager, Lily Kendrick, was instrumental in the laborious process of paging and indexing the city of Dallas into a booklet. The first Mapsco Product, the Dallas Street guide, was printed in 1952 with 3,000 copies produced. The original book covered Dallas, and the Park Cities, with insets for Carrollton and Garland. At first, the book was never intended to be sold to the public, and was only to be used by Keith's large fleet of flower delivery drivers. Soon, other flower shops began asking Keith and his employees for copies of the books to aid them in their deliveries as well.
From 1953 to 1955, the Dallas Mapsco was made with a glued back in order to save costs on production. These first few years also saw the production of Mapsco's first product outside of Dallas, and it was not Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
, but was Houston, Texas
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
. In the mid 50s Mapsco became the first company to make a Houston street atlas. The endeavor ended unfortunately when the glued backs of the Houston maps disintegrated in the humid air of that city - and Mapsco has not made any Houston maps since. For the first few years, Mapscos were not available to the general public. It was created specifically for business and delivery purposes, and sales were slow until 1956 when the city of Dallas bought 300 books for their fire and ambulance services. In 1955, Mapsco adopted a Roman military style indexing system, with singular letters arranged in a grid over the streets. In Dallas, the grid index has not changed since then. At that time, the city was a bewildering array of street names that matched streets in yet unannexed areas, which lead to a lot of confusion. Mapsco was the only accurate map of the newly-sprawling Sunbelt metropolis. By the late 1950s, having a Mapsco became a status symbol.
On December 5, 1957, Lily Kendrick became the President of Handymap, making it one of Dallas' first companies to be headed by a woman. Milton Boyd Keith's adopted son Donald became Vice President, and Lily's son Choyce became the Treasurer. Choyce had ten years in the air conditioning business and was unprepared for the challenges of mapmaking. The Dallas Mapsco, now with the Handymap name on the cover, continued to be produced. With the "succession crisis" now resolved, Mapscos continued to be made in the back of the flower shop for the remainder of the 50s and 60s. In 1959, the plastic spiral binding was changed to a metal wire binding, which continues in use to this day. Donald Keith sold his stock in the company to Lily in 1959, and the founding Keith family exited the map business. Also in that year, Mapsco acquired its main in-town rival, known as JIFFYMAP. The company paid $5,000 for the maps and name.
In 1964, Mapsco expanded the Dallas product and sold it out of the flower shop on Oak Lawn Avenue. In the early 60s, the Dallas Mapsco cost $4.50 each or $3.99 for pre-orders. Additionally, Rand McNally
Rand McNally
Rand McNally is an American publisher of maps, atlases, textbooks, and globes for travel, reference, commercial, and educational uses. It also provides online consumer street maps and directions, as well as commercial transportation routing software and mileage data...
maps and other globe and map products were sold. That year, the company reported a 30% increase in sales over the previous year. Lily retired in 1965 and left the company operations to her son, Choyce, and his wife Frances. In 1970, the company finally outgrew the flower shop and moved to dedicated headquarters at 1644 Irving Blvd in Dallas. The next year, in 1971, Handymap released the first edition of the Fort Worth street guide - the second product in Mapsco's lineup. The early 70s saw Mapsco's sales expand beyond its own store to various retail outlets like gas stations and convenience stores. The energy crisis of 1973 spurned Mapsco sales even further, when oil companies could no longer afford to give out free road maps. Larger sales brought a bigger company, and in 1979 the first profit-sharing plan was enacted.
North Dallas
North Dallas is an expensive area of numerous communities and neighborhoods in Dallas, Texas . The phrase "North Dallas" is also sometimes used to include any suburb or exurb north of Dallas proper within the metropolitan area. The majority of North Dallas is located in Dallas County while a small...
. By the early 80s, a Dallas Mapsco cost $10.95 and the book had about 18,000 streets in it. Each year, there were about 750 changes to the Dallas book compared to Fort Worth which had 40% less. In 1984, due to a personal agreement, Choyce Kendrick and Mapsco produced the first Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
street atlas and it became Mapsco's third book product. Also that year the company topped 100 sales outlets selling Mapsco books - and for the first year sold out of all Dallas and Fort Worth atlases. By the late 80s, Dallas police were reporting that Dallas Mapsco street atlases were the most stolen item from unlocked cars. The police department began a program to educate people to lock their cars so their Mapscos would not get stolen. In 1986, Mapsco needed even more space and moved to a large facility at 5308 Maple Avenue, the site also included a new retail store. In 1989, Choyce Kendrick retired from Mapsco and the company left the Kendrick family and was purchased by Dallas-based Rupe Investment Corp.
Mapsco's fourth street guide, Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
, started publication in 1993 and sold for $23.95. The first book was awkward and did not sell well, but by 1999 the Austin Mapsco was selling out. The next atlas, covering Ellis and Johnson Counties, came out the next year. This was the first suburban Dallas book and was made specifically for traffic related to the cancelled Superconducting Super Collider
Superconducting Super Collider
The Superconducting Super Collider was a particle accelerator complex under construction in the vicinity of Waxahachie, Texas that was set to be world's largest and most energetic, surpassing the current record held by the Large Hadron Collider. Its planned ring circumference was with an energy...
project. In 1993, the Fort Worth Star Telegram noted that "the Mapsco name... almost certainly equals that of Coca-Cola and McDonald's to DFW residents... the name has become a generic catch-all for local street directories." In 1994, practically every taxi, fire truck, police car, bus, and courier truck had a Dallas Mapsco inside. In March 1994, Rupe Investment purchased Pierson Graphics in Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
. Pierson operated independently for several years, but eventually was merged with Mapsco. Street atlases of Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, and other regional products started to be published by Mapsco. Also in 1994, Mapsco began a multi-million dollar project to update its mapping to a computerized process. In 1995, Mapsco acquired rights to publish El Paso
El Paso, Texas
El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...
, Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...
and Las Cruces, New Mexico
Las Cruces, New Mexico
Las Cruces, also known as "The City of the Crosses", is the county seat of Doña Ana County, New Mexico, United States. The population was 97,618 in 2010 according to the 2010 Census, making it the second largest city in the state....
streets guides - thereby expanding into New Mexico and Mexico. In September 1996, Mapsco purchased the Ferguson Map Company in San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
and began taking over the reins by publishing a San Antonio street atlas.
In 1996 the first Mapsco CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
was produced, and in 1997 the Dallas street guide was the first to be completely digitally produced. In 1998, the Dallas and Fort Worth Street guides sold for $31.95. Since that time, more new street guides have been produced. These include all of the DFW metroplex and exurban areas, all of Central Texas and the Texas Hill Country
Texas Hill Country
The Texas Hill Country is a vernacular term applied to a region of Central Texas featuring tall rugged hills consisting of thin layers of soil atop limestone or granite. It also includes the Llano Uplift and the second largest granite monadnock in the United States, Enchanted Rock, which is located...
, Oklahoma City
Oklahoma city
Oklahoma City is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma.Oklahoma City may also refer to:*Oklahoma City metropolitan area*Downtown Oklahoma City*Uptown Oklahoma City*Oklahoma City bombing*Oklahoma City National Memorial...
and Tulsa
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
. In 2000, Mapsco donated its entire archive to the University of Texas at Arlington
University of Texas at Arlington
The University of Texas at Arlington is a public research university located in Arlington, Texas, United States. The campus is situated southwest of downtown Arlington, and is located in the Dallas–Fort Worth metropolitan area. The university was founded in 1895 and served primarily a military...
. In 2001, Mapsco moved the corporate headquarters from the Maple Avenue location to 4181 Centurion Way in Addison, Texas
Addison, Texas
Addison is a city in Dallas County, Texas . The population was 14,166 at the 2000 census, and 15,737 according to a 2009 estimate. Addison is a northern suburb of Dallas...
.
Roads of ... Series
In January 2005 Mapsco acquired the rights to the "Roads of..." series of state atlases. The Roads of Texas was first published in 1988 by Shearer Publishing. As of 2008, titles exist for ColoradoColorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
, Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
, Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, and Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
.