Thanks to to Frank Gifford at Route 66 Pix for setting Rand McNally right! Rand McNally misplaced Route 66 for a large section that stretches across 60 miles of Oklahoma and Missouri, and deleted the Kansas section entirely.
The mistake appears on first releases of Missouri maps in the 2012 “Road Atlas Large Scale,” “Road Atlas Deluxe Midsize” and “Road Atlas Midsize.”
The error is pretty clear on Frank’s great illustration here:
Courtesy Frank Gifford "Route 66 Pix"
Rand McNally incorrectly shows Route 66 following US 60 northeast from Afton OK toward Neosho MO, then implies it follows US 71 north to Carthage MO.
The actual routing from Afton is to Miami and Commerce OK, Baxter Springs and Galena KS, then Joplin and Carthage MO. Route 66 has never followed the path Rand McNally shows, and the divergence is up to 25 miles
Rand McNally’s error is bound to confuse many first-time and casual travelers. The unmarked section in northeast OK is a separate but related problem. Together, they add to the already-strong case for National Historic Trail status for Route 66, and the consistent uniform signage this would bring.
Unfortunately Rand McNally didn’t respond very quickly to Gifford’s requests to look into it and only after an a blog post appeared in Route 66 News did the director of Retail Sales at Rand McNally post in their comments section:
Yes, Dan, we have our “web filters on” here at Rand McNally, and we’ve heard you loud and clear!
In fact, we had captured this information in February when Frank contacted us, but we did not close the loop with him to confirm that, and we apologize.
As noted above, the mistakenly placed shield appears on the non-subject part of Oklahoma on the Missouri map. The route is shown correctly on the Kansas and Oklahoma maps.
The map in question has been updated, and the change will appear in future reprints of our U.S. road atlases.
In the future, we will have a special online area where everyone can reach our Cartography/GIS team directly: randmcnally.com/tellrand will route feedback like this for immediate investigation and response.
Thanks to Route 66 News for your post on this matter!
All’s well that ends well and since it’s been resolved you might want to snap up old copies as collector’s editions!
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