Coleman's 1982 Map of Louisville

Do you remember those Coleman's Maps of Louisville that were kind of big and they were black-and-white? Me, too. Do you know why they don't make them anymore? I can think of at least three reasons:

  • The map did not even cover Southern Indiana, or anything outside Jefferson County proper. Another map has a reason to cover Jefferson County and nothing else, but it wasn't appropriate for this one.
  • Numerous inconsistent styles of hand updates ruining what was once a fine map, as illustrated here.
  • Plagirism? See Picture No. 5.

If you're a map geek looking for a good laugh, you've come to the right place.

1.
(1096×868 JPG, 307091 bytes, 300 dpi)

This excerpt from the city side of the map (I-71/I-264 interchange) pretty much explains itself. Hand-drawn freeways and other updates. And they didn't bother to remove the streets that were removed to make way for the freeways. And I'm not even going to try to count all the different styles of cartography in 10-1/2 square inches.
2.
(996×861 JPG, 317935 bytes, 300 dpi)

Was the map always that bad? No! This appears to be the base map onto which numerous additions and changes were made without bothering to maintain a consistent style of cartography. This part of the map was left mostly unmarred by updates and is actually nice and consistent in my opinion. Block numbers everywhere, even.
3.
(1324×990 JPG, 325809 bytes, 300 dpi)

This excerpt from Buechel on the city-side map illustrates that even the hand-drawn updates aren't consistent with eachother. Remnants of what appear to be the original cartography style still exist along with numerous ``updates''.
4.
(1538×1409 JPG, 302825 bytes, 300 dpi)

Now we are looking at the county side of the map, which shows the entire county. This portion of the map, featuring the extreme southeastern reaches of the county, shows an area which was back then unmarred by updates and bad cartography.
5.
(1834×968 JPG, 500533 bytes, 300 dpi)

This portion of the county-side map includes some suburban areas in Middletown and also illustrates numerous styles of cartography in 19-3/4 square inches. Is it a coincidence that excerpts of this map appear to be copied from 1980s-era Metro Graphic Arts cartography?