Agloe: The Town Created to Catch a Thief

Описание: In the 1930s, the Catskill Mountains were the premier destination for New York families escaping the city. But while tourists navigated the winding roads of "The Borscht Belt" looking for resorts, mapmakers were fighting a secret war.

This is the story of Agloe, New York—a town that was never supposed to exist.

Created by the General Drafting Co. as a "Copyright Trap" to catch competitors stealing their work, Agloe was nothing more than a phantom name on a paper map. A lie. A Null Coordinate.

But years later, when Rand McNally was sued for copying that very map, they revealed a defense that shocked the cartography world: They hadn't copied the map. They had visited the coordinates. And the town was there.

In this investigation:
0:00 The Catskills
0:37 Golden Age of Catskills
1:22 Agloe Intro
1:47 Cartography in the 1920s
2:28 The Copyright Trap Setup
3:10 The Lawsuit: General Drafting vs. Rand McNally
3:55 The Agloe General Store
4:35 The Agloe Lounge
5:14 When Reality Copies Fiction

📂 ABOUT NULL COORDINATES: We document the world that isn't there. From phantom islands to paper towns, we track down the glitches in our understanding of the planet.

Next Investigation: Sandy Island [Queued]

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