RAND MCNALLY

Updated 04-May-2020.

Mondo shtuff from around the internet, all about RAND MCNALLY!

Rand McNally Announces Corporate Headquarters Relocation: Rand McNally today announced it has moved its world headquarters to a modern, state-of-the-art location in Skokie, Ill., a Chicago suburb where it has

RAND MCNALLY TO SELL BOOK UNIT: Rand McNally & Co. of Skokie is selling its book manufacturing operations to World Color Press Inc. of Greenwich, Conn., for an undisclosed price. The firm says it also wants to sell its software service and transportation ticket and card units to focus on mapmaking. Rand McNally, founded in 1856, is the world’s largest commercial mapmaker.

My botty best at summarizing from Wikipedia: the company is headquartered in Chicago, with a distribution center in Richmond, Kentucky . the shop did big business with the forerunner of the Chicago Tribune . in 1868, the two men established Rand McNally & Co in 1870, the company expanded into printing business directories and an illustrated newspaper . according to company lore, during the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, two of the company’s printing machines were buried in a sandy the Trade Book department was established in 1877, publishing such titles as The Locust Plague in the United States . Rand McNally began publishing educational maps in 1880 with its first line of maps, globes, and geography in 1910, the company acquired the line of Photo-Auto Guides from G.S. Chapin . the company continued to expand its book publishing business . best-selling children’s books include The Real Mother Goose in 1916 and map of peoria, il was first published in 1917 by cartographer, John Brink . in 1920, Rand McNally began publishing road maps for the Gulf oil company . the oil industry quickly developed an interest in road maps the first full-color edition was published in 1960 and in 1993, it became fully digitized . it became a standard text for high school and college geography curricula . later retitled Goode’s World the first Rand McNally Travel Store was opened in new york city in 1937 . in the 1990s it became a chain with 29 locations, but by 2005 all were closed . the company opened its Versailles, Kentucky, book publishing plant the plant was over 1,000,000 square feet (93,000 m2) and employed 1,255 people . during the 1980s and 1990s, Rand McNally employed over 4,000 people in four business groups. Rand McNally moved its headquarters back to Chicago in late September 2018 . the company had been majority-owned by the McNally family since 1899 . when Rand retired in 1899, he sold his shares in the company to McN the McNally family completed its divestiture by selling its majority ownership to AEA Investors . much of the purchase price was leveraged, meaning the company took on significant debt hedging on future earnings . AEA intended to capitalize on Rand McNally’s brand recognition by bringing digital mapping to the masses . but the company fell behind the technology curve of upstarts such as MapQuest and fell further into debt . in 1952, it opened a new 283,008 sq ft (26,292 m2) building in suburban Skokie . it brought corporate offices, printing, and distribution operations under one roof . over the Andrew McNally assumed the role of president until his death in 1904 . when Frederick McNally died in 1907, his sister’s husband became president . heirs successively served as president until 1993 . 1980 – Transportation Data Management (TDM) makers of transportation mileage and routing software . 1992 – Nicholstone Holdings – Subsidiary companies were folded into Rand’s Book Services Group . 1996 – Gousha – One of Rand McNally’s longtime rivals, its 82 employees unexpectedly found their Comfort, Texas, building locked with a note taped to the door stating that the company had Rand McNally continues to brand its street guide products as “The Thomas Guide” in western U.S. markets.