In the early 1900s, when the automobile was still a new invention, Otto G. Lindberg’s General Drafting Corporation took a risk and began to produce cheap, foldable driving maps. The two biggest mapmakers in the United States, Rand McNally and H.M. Gousha, initially ignored what they believed would be a fleeting style, and let General Drafting corner the market. But by 1930, the juggernauts had realized their mistake, and raced fiercely to catch up. Lindberg and his assistant, Ernest Alpers, were concerned that because there would be no way to prove it, any rival looking to cut corners could simply copy General Drafting’s hard work instead of conducting their own measurements. Lindberg and Alpers had far less money and manpower, and desperately needed a way to protect their craft.
And that was how Agloe was born.
Some time after General Drafting published its New York State driving map with their secret town hidden on it, Rand McNally released its own version, and Lindberg spotted Agloe on their competitor’s map in the exact same area. He sued, claiming he’d caught Rand McNally stealing red-handed, because he and Alpers had made up Agloe. It wasn’t real.
Except it was, said Rand McNally.
Lindberg and his lawyers drove out to the deserted Catskills countryside where he’d placed Agloe on his map, ready to claim victory.
He was stunned by what he found.
There, where there should have been absolutely nothing at all, was a gas station, a general store, houses with people living in them—and an official record in Delaware County administration logs.
A town that was not supposed to exist at all somehow mysteriously did.
I first heard about General Drafting and Agloe years ago, and have remained captivated by the story ever since. I kept thinking about this impossible town, returning again and again to the idea in between other deadlines. Maps already hold so much beauty and wonder for all of us, and the real-world mystery of an imaginary town that became real was too tantalizing to let go.
The truth of what happened is just as fascinating as any fiction. It turns out that when General Drafting’s map first went into circulation, residents of the area where Lindberg and Alpers had planted Agloe saw this new name on the paper and assumed the local government had established the town for them. They began re-titling businesses and revising addresses already in the general area, which then prompted county administrators to record the information. This flurry of activity attracted new residents, who then built even more buildings and named them after Agloe, too. By the time Rand McNally’s cartographers traveled through on their own geographical survey, they came upon a bustling little village the residents confidently informed them was called Agloe—and so they put it on their own map as well.
This incredible town existed for decades and even became somewhat of a tourist attraction before the residents of Agloe eventually disbanded, and mapmakers, at last, removed the town from their maps. But even though now there’s only an empty field left where Agloe used to be, its legend lives on.
The more accurate a map is, the more powerful we understand it to be—that is, the world is what makes the map real. But Otto G. Lindberg achieved something even more spectacular, even if it was by serendipity. His map made part of the world real, at least for a little bit, and proved that even in this day and age, there are still secrets to be discovered within the folds of their pages.
And that seems pretty magical to me.