Cartophile: General Drafting's Castle

The Great Hall at the Castle

They found a most unusual piece of real estate at a bargain price at a tax sale. Built as a residence by the founder of Old Crow Distillery, the building was a replica of an English manor house. It was too big for a residence for most people, but the neighborhood was definitely residential. The G.D. people came to terms with the city fathers in Convent Station and convinced them that they could run a business that would not diminish the residential character of the neighborhood. Thus, the only sign was very tiny, most cars were parked in the back, and nothing modern was done to the exterior of the building.

Another view of The Great Hall at the Castle

Normally, I hate to wait in a lobby until an executive gets around to seeing me. That wasn't my feeling at all on my occasional trip to the Castle, as it was called. The lobby was the Great Hall of the manor house, and it was kept intact and even decorated with things like a suit of armor. Some rooms were modernized and used for work. Others were kept intact. In the summer, lunch was eaten on the back patio. During the winter, you'd go to the dungeon.

Since we were employees of the mapmaker (and not of the oil company), and since we used the maps more than anyone else, it stood to reason that we might spot errors. Thus, each Touring Service had correction cards. Proofreading comes naturally to me, so I soon was sending in more than anyone else. In fact, I was sending in more than everyone else --- in all of the Touring Service offices around the world. One time I suggested that I'd like to make money while I was back East for Christmas, so I went to the Castle to discuss the details. Again, I took a test --- a practical test of proofreading. To say the least, I did very well. From then on, I was welcome to spend as many days as I wished at the Castle (unless it was busy season and the Touring Service needed me). Eventually, they even sent me some proof copies to check while I was in Kansas. I'd mail them back with errors noted and a bill for my time.

Recently, I've established contact with another Kansan who worked at the Castle in the 1960's. Unlike me, he worked full-time, year-round at the Castle. I'm going to encourage him to post some of his memories and then I'll post a link to his site.

Since posting this page, I've heard from others with an interest in the Castle, including one e-mail that informed me that, when General Drafting was sold, nobody would buy the building due to environmental regulations, so the building is now empty and falling into disrepair. What a shame!

This evening (January 25, 2003), I happened upon a copy of a special edition of News in General. That was the name of the company newsletter. This special edition, though, was the one that they gave to visitors to the Castle, explaining its history and its features. Knowing that others would be interested in seeing this 4-page newsletter, I've taken the liberty of reproducing it here as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file. If you don't already have Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can download it for free at http://www.adobe.com and install it so you can see it in a format quite true to the original. I'm quite certain that I'll never again work in such a unique building.

Proceed to the RMCA & recent years.