A love of maps

[Al Agnew]

I still remember something that happened when I was a kid, maybe in my very early teens.  The Missouri Conservationist magazine always came to the house and I would spend hours perusing it, and one issue had an article that was illustrated with a small section of a topographic map.  I'd never seen a topo map before and had no idea that there were maps that showed the actual shape of the land in such precision.  For whatever reason, I immediately figured out how to read it and what the little lines signified, and from then on I was in love with topo maps.  But I can still picture that little section of map in my mind, and feel the wonder I felt then.

Not long afterward, I found that one could order such maps from the Missouri Geological Survey.  At the time, they were, as I remember, 25 cents apiece.  I quickly ordered a free index map, and started ordering maps with money I got from mowing lawns.  Many of the maps back then, in the 1960s, were still the 15 minute quadrangles; probably less than half the state of Missouri was covered by the more detailed 7.5 minute maps.  I preferred the 15 minute ones because I could get one of them that illustrated the same area of land that four 7.5 minute ones covered.  I would order the maps 4 or 5 at a time, starting with the area closest to where I lived and gradually accumulating maps the eventually covered almost all of southern Missouri.  Then I started on Arkansas, since that was where a lot of the lakes and streams I dreamed of fishing were located, and it was a part of the Ozarks, too.  That was my strongest interest in buying the maps, to make sure I had maps that showed every floatable stream and fishable lake.  There are still a few small gaps in my map coverage--they were maps that did not include any floatable stream.

I would spend hours poring over all these maps, and they fired my imagination, thinking of floating those rivers, seeing the bluffs shown on the maps and the springs and small creeks coming into them.  Yes, they were useful as I got old enough to drive and go exploring.  They showed stream courses, valley shapes, gradients, even tree cover.  I could measure the mileages--I bought a little map measuring device with a tiny wheel and dial that you could run along the stream course and it would show the miles.  I could even guess at where good gravel bars for camping would be, though I quickly learned that you couldn't depend upon gravel bars shown on the map to actually be there, especially if a decade or more had passed since the map was made.

I also got interested in geology, especially as it pertained to streams and the Ozarks in general, and the Geological Survey catalog was like a Christmas catalog to me.  I ordered books on geology, and also geologic maps.  I discovered the larger scale maps, 1:100,000 scale, that showed 100 foot contours and bought a set of them covering the entire Ozark region, that I put together and taped to a wall in the apartment I was living in at the time.  I also found some of the old, historical topo maps still for sale, and several of them are still prized possessions to this day, maps that were made back in the first decade of the 1900s.  Stop and think about it...this was before there were airplanes!  These maps had to have been made by guys walking nearly every bit of the ground covered in the maps, and drawing them mostly by hand.  Considering this, their accuracy was amazing, though they are not nearly as accurate as today's maps.

Perhaps I became almost obsessed with topo maps.  I would doodle stream courses and topographic lines while killing time doing something else.  I drew my own topographic maps, first of float stream stretches, later of my own land and of places that friends and relatives owned, carefully measuring elevations and drawing the topo lines at 5 foot or even 1 foot contour intervals.  I decided that it would really be cool to have those 1:100,000 scale maps of the whole Ozarks, but without all the "extraneous" information like roads, cities, political boundaries, and even forest cover...just the topographic contours in brown or black and the streams in blue.  So I bought another set of the large scale maps, and painted over them with gesso.  I could put the map on a light box, and see all the information beneath the gesso...and trace over all those tiny contour lines.  I probably worked on that project for hundreds of hours, laboriously tracing every contour line as carefully as possible with a technical pen, so that when I was done, I had all the topo lines in black on a white background, and the watercourses in blue, just as I wanted.  Then I put them together and glued them to one whole wall of my house.  

I depended on topo maps whenever I went anywhere.  If it was someplace outside the Ozarks and I planned on spending time outdoors, I ordered the maps that covered the area.  If I was driving to anyplace in the Ozarks for any reason, I took along the maps that covered my entire driving route, not just the destination.  I carried topo maps on every float, every hike, every hunting trip.  I became good enough at reading them that I could tell you whether a specific location was sandstone, limestone, or granite, just from the shape of the contours.

When GPS came onto the scene, I didn't bother to get a GPS device, nor to learn much about it, because a topo map and compass were all I needed to tell me where I was at any given point.  I now own some GPS units, but still seldom use them.  But I've discovered all the online map resources that have largely taken the place of all those paper maps I accumulated.  Heck, with the National Map website, I can download a section of map at various scales, import it to Photoshop, and isolate the contour lines to make my own contour map without all that other stuff--the process that took me those thousands of hours 40 years ago can be done in an hour or so now, and I could print it out in a few minutes.  I made some map illustrations for the book I'm trying to finish on the Meramec River system, float maps covering different sections of the river, a geologic map of the watershed, and an elevation map of the watershed as well, in which I isolated the contour lines from the National Map as a base for producing those maps.  

So yeah, I'm still almost obsessed with maps.  I find them beautiful over and above their usefulness.

[fishinwrench]

I have some USGS TOPO maps that are grossly inaccurate.  I guess they were designed to be "beautiful", because they are worthless for anything else.  They show draws and ditches where none exist, and in other spots there are draws and ditches that do exist....yet the map shows nothing.   The crest of the tallest ridge is shown, but it's location in reference to the triangulation of a creek bend and a long established and paved road is off by almost 3/4 mile.     

Pretty map though.  Gorgeous to look at. Wallpaper material for sure.  Last time I mentioned this Chief got REALLY upset.   

[Bushbeater]

Here's a link to download topo maps. If you can get access to a large format printer or plotter they come out very nice. https://nationalmap.gov/historical/

[ColdWaterFshr]

I love me some maps too.  My office walls are pasted with them.  I especially like the raised relief maps - but only have 3 of those (Rocky Mtn. National Park, Yosemite, and Smoky Mtns).  Wish they made these for ONSR, or Buffalo River and some other places.

 

[Ketchup]

Nice writeup Al.  Tho im grosely negligent in mapping, i do look at them online when venturing out somewhere i have never been, to hike, hunt.  As you stated, when GPS came on scene, it cut out the need to spend those types of hours looking, when a zoomed in GPS map has so much to offer.

I enjoy woodworking, and at times still use a hand planer instead of the electric variety i have, just because.  

[ness]

I love maps too. Have a few custom ones from MyTopo for areas I’m interested in. But with so much information available online I tend to do my work there and load waypoints into my GPS and just go. I know this is making me stupid(er?) but it’s soooo easy. I’ve got hand drawn maps for fishing and hunting locations too. And a growing library of the Delorme state atlases, though I don’t like the scale on those much. 

[David Unnerstall]

Some time back I read a book on using topo maps to select deer hunting spots.  Basically you find "funnels" that deer have to use to get from one section to another.  I bought several maps of Mark Twain National Forest and spent a lot of time on this.

[Ketchup]

3 hours ago, ness said:

I love maps too. Have a few custom ones from MyTopo for areas I’m interested in. But with so much information available online I tend to do my work there and load waypoints into my GPS and just go. I know this is making me stupid(er?) but it’s soooo easy. I’ve got hand drawn maps for fishing and hunting locations too. And a growing library of the Delorme state atlases, though I don’t like the scale on those much. 

Dont you live in KS?  Didnt know they knew what a map was since it flat enough to see from east to west and north to south. 

[Bass Yakker]

This website is pretty cool.  You can view old and fairly current topo maps and layer them if you want. https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#4/40.01/-100.06

[Quillback]

Used to use USGS topo maps when I lived in Washington state.  Very useful in showing hiking trails, lakes and streams in the mountains.