ninab95•1mo agoOG Member

Pulled a 1950s gas station map from a barn in Ohio last Tuesday

Ended up being a complete fantasy layout with a lake that never existed and two highways intersecting where there's just a cornfield now, best $5 I ever spent at an auction but how do you even verify something like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

sam_anderson1mo ago

and honestly, that's the kind of thing you'd need to dig into old county records or maybe find a local historical society that has plat maps from the 50s to compare against. i had a buddy who found a similar fantasy map from a roadside diner in Indiana and it turned out the artist just took creative liberty to make the area look more interesting for tourists. your best bet is probably hitting up some online forums for map collectors, since they love tracking down weird stuff like that and can usually point you to the right source.

maxm631mo ago

Yeah, the thing you said about "creative liberty to make the area look more interesting" nails it. @sam_anderson, I had almost the exact same thing happen with a map I picked up at a flea market in Kansas. Turned out some guy in the 60s just redrew the whole county layout to look like a cowboy movie set, threw in fake ghost towns and everything. Found out when I compared it to a 1954 plat map from the local historical society. Total fantasy, not even close to the real layout. Those old roadside diner maps are wild, half of them just straight up invented landmarks to sell burgers.