I know atlases and roadmaps were a lot more common, but from my understanding those give more of a broader view of a large area like major roads and stuff. If you needed to find a small subdivision or small road, how would you do that before the internet?
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– You can get detailed paper maps of a particular city.
– Send people directions in invitations or business advertising.
– Call them on the phone and ask for directions.
– Get someone familiar with the area to show you.
– Signage on highways gives directions to major attractions like stadiums, airports etc.
My son is 21 and for some reason he prefers using atlases rather that GPS. He has an iPhone, but always pulls out the old Thomas Guide.
He lives in rural Maine and just prefers to use the map. He also lives in a tent and is building a small log cabin. He’s a different breed.
Street guides and logical grid layouts.
If the address is in the old square grid part of town, it’s simple.
In my town, Main Street runs north and south, and east-west numbering starts from there. There is no First Street now, but Second Street is up by the river, and north-south numbering starts from there. Even numbered buildings are on the north and west sides of the street, odd numbers on the south and east.
So, if you’re looking for 2408 W. 71 Street, and you know that State Line Road is 1900 West, you would go to State Line Road, travel along it to 71 Street, turn west, go five blocks, and start looking for 2408 on the north side of the street. Easy peasy.
Of course, this skill does little good in the twisty turny suburbal streets.
In between maps, which everyone has covered, and GPS, you could use mapquest or similar websites (precursors to google maps) and print the turn by turn directions.
Edit: I guess the question was pretty specific before that time as well, but maybe someone will learn anyways
95% of addresses were easy. Just the street and the number, the map would get you close enough, and you cold intuitively find it by looking at the numbers you were near and heading the way you needed to go. There have always been really jacked up instances though. Like roads that are broken by a highway or railroad and then continue on the other side as if nothing happened. A lot of times, when you got in this situation, the wife would MAKE you stop at a gas station or other locality to ask someone and they always knew the deal. … and then the wife had to pee, and 20 minutes later, you were back in the car, and would eventually find it. Luckily, back then, most of the store clerks spoke English.
paper maps, phone book, yellow pages, directory assistance and a land line. Oh, and the sun, the moon and other cosmic indicators of cardinal directions. Maybe mountains always on the west for example.
if you were going on vacation AAA would make a strip map from your start to your finish, with written directions just like google maps does today, except it was on paper
Your search for almost anything began with a phone book. Most businesses would be helpful in giving directions. Gas stations were often a good resource. Where there was a will, most would often find the way.
Every home was delivered a Phone book each year. These phone books contained the name, address and phone number of each person who had a home phone. This was called the White Pages.
There was also the Yellow Pages. Which was similar to the White Pages except for businesses. Businesses paid for these listings.
These gave you the address of places in the area the phone book covered.
On top of the White and Yellow pages these Phone books also contained maps of the area the Phone book covered. Once you know the street you need to head to it was just a matter of looking up that street name in the index of the maps and it told you what map to look at on Page X.
So the most common way people would find address were to look it up in the phone book and head to the map section and find the road they needed to travel to. So you then plotted out your route to get you to that road.
You could also buy complete maps of pretty much everywhere. These contained every road that was there when the current map was made. You could find these all over but just stopping at a gas stations or convenience stores, along with many other stores, in the area you were at was the easiest place to purchase one. These maps really weren’t any different that something like Google Maps, except they covered much smaller areas instead of everywhere.
You might not know exactly where to turn onto a street, but if you know the address it isn’t too hard to look at the posted addresses on any two building and see which way you needed to go to find the address. So if you saw address 123 followed by 125, moving in the direction you were traveling and needed to get to the address 324, you knew you needed to continue heading in the direction you were going until you found the building you were heading to, on the opposite side of the street, as odd addresses are on one side and even addresses are on the other(at least in the US).
If you were traveling a long distance, to say a city in a different state, you would start with an atlas and plot out the major roads you needed to travel to get you to the general area you were heading to. Then you would look at a local map of that area and find the street you needed to head to and plot a route from where you are to the road you needed. Then it was just a matter of looking at the addresses on the street and heading in the direction that would take you to the building you needed to get to.
Go on like you’re going to that church but instead of taking a right hang a left instead. On down that road you’re going to pass a bunch of cow fields. Keep on going. When you get to that video game store that used to be an old gas station take a right. Keep driving for a long ways until it gets weird. When you see the water tower you’re there. Our house is the one with purple flowers painted on the fence. Come on in!
Hagstrom still makes binder type books by county. You’d have to know the street and town you were looking for then drive down the block reading house numbers. Carried at least 4 or 5 in my van for north NJ, southern NY
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