1888 Cram and Rock Island Railroad Map of the United States

George Franklin Cram (May 20, 1842 - 1928) was an American map publisher active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During the American Civil War, Cram served as a staff cartographer for the Union General Ulysses S. Grant and participated in Sherman's 'March to the Sea'. In 1867, after being discharged from the army, George Cram moved to Chicago, where he founded 'Blanchard and Cram' with his uncle Rufus Blanchard Evanston. Blanchard and Cram was a supply house for the book trade - though they also published a few maps during this period. This short lived business was destroyed in the 1871 by the Great Chicago Fire. After the fire, recognizing a business opportunity in the burgeoning railroad industry, Cram reinvented himself as cartographic publisher, opening the Cram Map Depot. Like fellow Chicago publisher Rand McNally, Cram took advantage of the economical wax engraving processes to inexpensively produce maps in vast quantities. His signature publication, the Unrivaled Atlas of the World became the world's best-selling atlas and was published from the 1880s to 1952. On retiring in 1921, Cram sold his company to Edward A. Peterson of the National Map Company (Scarborough Company). Peterson moved the company to Indianapolis where, following Cram's death, he rebranded the National Map Company as the George F. Cram Company, surely thinking to capitalize on the established identity of the firm. In 1930 he entered the globe market for which the firm was best known from the mid-20th century. In time the firm expanded globally passing becoming a major concern. Loren B. Douthit became company president in 1968 and the Douthit family ran the business until Herff Jones, Inc., bought the company in 2005. More by this mapmaker...

Everitte St. John (February 4, 1844 - April 21, 1908) was an American businessman and railroad executive. St. John began working for the Rock Island system in 1863, an association that lasted thirty-one years. Eventually, he became general manager of the Rock Island. He served as chairman of the General Managers's Association of all the railroads entering Chicago and held that position during the 1894 Pullman strike. He resigned in 1894 to become the vice-president and general manager of the Seaboard Air Line. He retired in 1901. He married Emmelina Lamson on February 4, 1869, his twenty-fifth birthday. Learn More...