Mendenhall’s Guide and Road Map of Indiana

An interesting guide to Indiana’s roads from the early 1900s.

This fascinating road map of Indiana was copyrighted in 1906 and published by C.S. Mendenhall. The informative image shows the Main Touring Roads in red, while Good Roads and Connecting Roads are shown with dashed and cased lines, respectively. Though specifics are absent, the last category is probably dirt, while the former two have been improved via paving, gravel, macadam, etc. Insets maps show similar road details in the areas around Louisville and Marion County (with Indianapolis). The image is deliberately extended beyond the state borders to include the nearby urban centers of Cincinnati and Chicago.

Established in Cincinnati and active from the 1880s through the 1910s, C.S. Mendenhall was a pioneering mapmaking firm that played a vital role in transitioning American travelers from the bicycle craze of the Gilded Age to the era of the automobile. While competitors like Rand McNally focused on national expansion, Mendenhall became a regional authority on the Midwest and pockets of the East Coast and Southern states. His detailed maps were usually accompanied by road guides that provided text-based itineraries between specific points, often incorporating local conditions (as in this case). An uncommon and ephemeral relic from the early days of the automobile, when horses and wagons were more commonly seen on the roads of the Hoosier State.