Agloe, New York

Agloe
ExxonMobil Map location
Fictional copyright trap Agloe, New York, shown on a real 1998 Exxon (American map) state map of New York
In-universe information
Type	Copyright trap
Locations	New York

Agloe, New York is a fictional place that became an actual landmark.

In the 1930s, General Drafting Company founder Otto G. Lindberg and an assistant, Ernest Alpers, assigned an anagram of their initials to a dirt-road intersection in the Catskill Mountains: New York Route 206 and Morton Hill Road, north of Roscoe, New York. Designed as a copyright trap, the "paper town" published on the General Drafting map then began to appear on Esso maps, proving the effectiveness of the trap.

In the 1950s, though, a general store was built at the intersection on the map, and was given the name Agloe General Store because the name was on the Esso maps. Later, Agloe appeared on a Rand McNally map after the mapmaker got the name of the "town" from the Delaware County administration. Eventually the store went out of business; Agloe continued to appear on maps as recently as the 1990s, but has now been deleted.

Agloe is featured as an important part of the plot in the novel Paper Towns by John Green.

See also

• Fictitious entry
• Trap street