The Town Crier: Shopping map for Dalton

Published 11:00 am Saturday, January 25, 2025

I saw a list on the internet the other day with about 20 things on it, that if you had ever used these things, you were “old.” They included “Have you ever used a phonograph record?” and “Have you ever listened to a ball game on the radio?”

One that stood out to me was “Have you ever used a paper map to find your way?” I used to use those ship sail-sized foldout maps all the time. Usually they only had main roads near your destination, and then you would switch to handwritten directions someone had dictated over a landline phone. Jotted down in pencil on the back of an old envelope, it might say things like “Go through three lights and take a left” or include landmarks like “You will see a Texaco station on the right and a McDonald’s catty-corner on the left. Continue straight.” After a long list of twists, turns and questionable landmarks, the direction giver would finish with “You can’t miss it.” Oh, yeah? Just you wait until I’m an hour late and have to call you from a pay phone.

One advertising item that would show up every few years was a “map” of local businesses. I haven’t seen one in years so they may have gone away when paper maps were overtaken by GPS devices. GPS devices were originally separate electronic gizmos that you plugged into your car’s cigarette lighter and had a small screen and choosable voices (my kids chose an Australian lady accent). Then they showed up on your smartphone, and now almost every car has its own GPS mapping that goes along with the backup camera. But let’s get back to those paper “local business maps.”

Although I’ve seen many over the years, I recently found an old one from 2000, just in time for businesses to get in some advertising for Y2K. These maps, as they state along the bottom, were not to scale or for directions, which was obvious because of the cartoon nature of the artwork.

If you’ve never seen one of these maps, maybe you’ve seen one of the theme park maps they used to sell for Six Flags or Disney World. They were caricatures of the parks, and I would say the Dalton map was a caricature of a caricature. For example, regardless of where they were located in real life, all the buildings on this map face either west or south so the fronts of the buildings are visible. That means many businesses would have their backsides facing the main street.

However, that’s the least of the oddball, non-map issues with the map. The streets many times just run into dead ends, or end into some store.

Although railroads are a key part of Dalton, there are only three peeks of tracks on the map. And whoever the artist was, they didn’t pay close attention to a real map of Dalton, even getting some of the street names wrong. Instead of Selvidge Street, they wrote “Selridge,” and instead of Crawford, put “Cranford.” They have two bridges for Walnut, one crossing Hamilton and then another bridge crossing the railroad tracks. And a little further down the road, Walnut takes a 90-degree right turn away from Walnut Square Mall.

But the map isn’t there to guide you, it’s to advertise to you. So let’s take a look at who was advertising in Dalton 25 years ago.

Most of the folks on there just show up once, but several advertisers make multiple appearances on the map. The one appearing all over with five buildings and a billboard was Favorite Markets gas and quickie marts. Most were originally Calfee’s Minute Markets back in the day, but in 2000 there were 21 locations of the Favorite Markets in the area.

Holiday Inn makes three showings, one as the actual building near I-75, one as a billboard and one as a hot air balloon. The Jameson Inn also makes three appearances, the same as Holiday Inn, with a building, billboard and balloon. The Holiday Inn focuses on meeting rooms and a lounge with a live band, while the Jameson features its pool and continental breakfast. And there are three Hardwick Bank and Trust Co. features, one each at the satellite branches and one at the flagship bank on Waugh. And there are two Los Reyes restaurants in town at the time.

The artwork of the buildings are all drawn on the same scale, and all the people on the map are drawn on the same scale, but the people and buildings are in two different scales. All the cartoon people on the map look to be about 12 to 15 feet high compared to the buildings, making Dalton look like it’s the invasion location for a 1950s science fiction B movie.

To add to the “gianticis” of the landscape, on the roofs of many of the businesses are giant examples of what they sell. There are giant sandwiches on Chubby’s restaurant, plates with steaks, giant tires, teeth that are brushing themselves on dentist offices, diamonds and even chickens, with the poultry appearing on top of the Conagra chicken plant when it was downtown.

Some of the places on this map from 2000 that are no longer with us include Wachovia Bank, Frank’s Pharmacy, TCBY yogurt shop and Jimmy’s Restaurant and Lounge. Out at the mall it was the Carmike movie theater, with department stores like Sears, Goody’s and Proffitt’s for your shopping pleasure.

And finally, they threw in a few freebies such as all the city schools, a sign for the Tunnel Hill Civil War battle reenactment and a list of famous Daltonians like Deborah Norville, Marla Maples and baseball star “Suitcase” Simpson. The one thing that’s not on the map … are you sitting down? … no carpet mills!

Mark Hannah is a Dalton native who works in the film and video industry.