Our History

2010 - Rand McNally acquires Tripology, an interactive travel referral service focused on connecting travelers with qualified and customer-rated travel specialists

2009 - Rand McNally launches the IntelliRoute TND® truck GPS device, built from the ground up for professional truck drivers; featuring Rand McNally's proprietary truck data and a suite of Trucker Business Tools, the device wins major industry awards for innovation and design

2009 - Rand McNally launches MileMaker® Global software for the commercial transportation market, taking the industry standard worldwide

2007 - Rand McNally launches Rand McNally Classroom, an interactive subscription service for schools

2006 - Rand McNally celebrates its 150th birthday

2003 - Time® magazine names randmcnally.com as one of its "50 Best Websites."

2003 - The company releases Mobile Travel Tools®, a full-color, richly rendered maps-and-directions application for wireless phones

2002 - Rand McNally launches a new site: trucking.randmcnally.com, a repository of i nformation for the commercial transportation market

2000 - Rand McNally launches a Road Atlas on an expansion card, making the Road Atlas available on Palm® OS handhelds.

2000 - The randmcnally.com website is revamped with personalized trip planning and an enhanced online Travel Store with more than 4,500 products.

1999 - Rand McNally acquires Thomas Bros. Maps®, the mapping standard in California and the west coast

1999 - Rand McNally introduces a new software program for commercial trucking called IntelliRoute® and featuring the most advanced trucking database in North America

1997 - The Rand McNally Travel Store, the world's most comprehensive online travel store, is launched on the company website

1997 - The company's website, randmcnally.com is launched, offering up-to-date information on road construction and weather, online reservations, shopping, and other services

1996 - Building on the success of TripMaker®, the company introduces StreetFinder® street navigation software

1995 - The company develops and patents EasyFinder® laminated maps that are easy to unfold and refold

1994 - Rand McNally introduces TripMaker® software for travel planning on personal computers. It becomes a market leader and wins a host of awards

1993 - Rand McNally acquires Allmaps Canada Limited, a leading producer of consumer and business-to-business maps and atlases

1993 - The Road Atlas becomes the first Rand McNally product created using an all-digital method

1984 - Rand McNally acquires the assets of Denoyer-Geppert Company, a leading school map and globe publisher.

1980 - Rand McNally acquires a small company called Transportation Data Management (TDM). TDM marries Rand McNally's enormous map database to an electronic system for delivery of routing and mileage information to the trucking industries

1980 - Thomas Bros. Maps relocates to Irvine, California

1974 - Andrew McNally IV succeeds his father as president.

1969 - The first edition of The New International Atlas is published by a historic cooperative project of an international group of mapmaking firms led by Rand McNally; the atlas includes maps utilizing the Robinson Projection, created for Rand McNally by renowned cartography professor Arthur H. Robinson

1969 - Rand McNally's Book Manufacturing Division automates the process by which thumb indexes are cut and labeled for dictionaries and encyclopedias

1960 - The first full-color Rand McNally Road Atlas premieres

1953 - Rand McNally revolutionizes the industry by becoming the first commercial mapmaker to adopt the scribing process to make maps. The ticket division produces the first pressure-sensitive railroad and airline tickets, which eliminate messy carbon copies

1952 - Having outgrown its Chicago offices, the company moves its corporate headquarters to Skokie, Illinois

1948 - Andrew McNally III becomes company president

1947 - Rand McNally takes a chance on a little known, maverick Norwegian scientist named Thor Heyerdahl and publishes his book Kon-Tiki; it becomes a best-seller around the world

1945 - Rand McNally creates a new carbonized ticket book that eliminates the bulky accordion-fold airline and train tickets

1939 - Within 24 hours of Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, stores across the United States sell out of Rand McNally's map of Europe

1937 - Rand McNally opens its first Map & Travel Store in New York City

1933 - Andrew McNally II becomes company president.

1927 - Noted aviator Charles Lindbergh uses Rand McNally railroad maps for navigation over land during his historic flight across the Atlantic Ocean

1924 - On April 15, the Rand McNally Auto Chum is published; it is the first edition of what will become the best-selling Rand McNally Road Atlas

1923 - Rand McNally publishes the first edition of Goode's World Atlas (named after its first editor, Dr. J. Paul Goode); it becomes the standard geography text for high schools and colleges and continues today

1917 - On a map of Peoria, Illinois, the company debuts a new highway numbering system that will become the model for the system used across the United States today

1917 - The Real Mother Goose, which became one of the all-time best-selling children's books in the United States, is published

1915 - Thomas Bros. Maps is founded in Oakland, California. Their distinctive page-and-grid system will help to make Thomas Guides® the "bible" for drivers on the West Coast.

1907 - Rand McNally assumes publication from G.S. Chapin of the Photo-Auto Guides, which combine maps and photos with overlaid arrows to indicate correct turns; Andrew McNally II (grandson of the original Andrew McNally) personally takes the pictures for the Chicago-to-Milwaukee edition while on his honeymoon!

1904 - Rand McNally's first automobile road map, New Automobile Road Map of New York City & Vicinity, is published

1899 - William Rand leaves the company to pursue other interests; Andrew McNally becomes President and his family runs the business for the next century

1880 - The company ventures into educational publishing, offering a line of globes, maps, and geography textbooks

1873 - Rand McNally is incorporated with William Rand as president and Andrew McNally as vice president

1872 - The first-ever Rand McNally map appears in the December 1872 issue of the Railway Guide; Rand McNally uses a new wax engraving method, which significantly reduces the cost of printing maps

1871 - As the Great Chicago Fire races through the city, Rand and McNally rescue two ticket printing machines by burying them in the sand! Three days later, the machines are up and running in rented space

1870 - Rand McNally expands from printing into publishing with the introduction of business directories, railroad guides, and an illustrated newspaper

1869 - The first railroad guide, the Western Railway Guide, is published.

1868 - Andrew McNally and William Rand begin their partnership and establish Rand McNally & Company; they take over the Chicago Tribune's printing shop and agree to print tickets and timetables to serve Chicago's booming railroads, which are the nation's premier railroad hub

1858 - Irish immigrant Andrew McNally takes a job in Rand's printing shop for $9 a week

1856 - William Rand opens a small printing shop in Chicago's Loop, forming the precursor of Rand McNally