Territorial Era Wrestling

The real territorial era in North America, drawn from each promotion's turf and towns (approximate). Pick a snapshot year: Texas splits four ways (Dallas, Houston, Amarillo, San Antonio), California north and south, and Illinois divides between AWA Chicago and Sam Muchnick's St. Louis. Three big promotions ran outside the alliance for most of it: Verne Gagne's AWA across the Upper Midwest, Vince McMahon Sr.'s Capitol / WWWF along the Northeast corridor, and Dick the Bruiser's WWA out of Indianapolis. Cities run by two promotions in the same year (St. Louis, Omaha, Chicago, Detroit, Birmingham) draw as split markers. Offices change hands as you step through the years: Jim Barnett sells Indianapolis to Bruiser and Detroit to the Sheik in 1964, Al Haft hands the Sheik Ohio in 1967, Jerry Jarrett breaks from Nick Gulas in 1977, and Bill Watts buys Leroy McGuirk out in 1979.

A note on accuracy: I drew these maps from my own understanding of the era, so some borders, dates, and towns are likely wrong. If you spot an error or something missing, email maps@gwawrestling.com.

Embed this map on your site

Paste this into any page that accepts HTML. It loads a chrome-free version of the map that sizes itself to the frame, and it pulls nothing from third-party tile servers, so there is no API key to manage and nothing to configure.

<iframe
  src="https://maps.gwawrestling.com/embed/territorial-era"
  title="Territorial Era Wrestling"
  width="100%"
  height="620"
  loading="lazy"
  style="border:1px solid #c3b590;border-radius:8px;max-width:100%"
></iframe>

Framing one view

Two query parameters on the embed URL let a post frame the exact view its text is talking about.

?year=1975: Opens on that snapshot instead of 1958. This map is drawn at fixed years: 1958, 1965, 1975, 1985.
?highlight=mid-atlantic: Dims every territory except one. Here, that is Mid-Atlantic. Combine the two with &, e.g. ?year=1975&highlight=mid-atlantic .

Territory ids

Values accepted by ?highlight=:

mid-atlantic Mid-Atlantic
georgia Georgia
florida Florida
gulf-coast Gulf Coast
mid-america Mid-America
memphis Memphis
tri-state Tri-State
mid-south Mid-South
world-class World Class
houston Houston
san-antonio Southwest (San Antonio)
western-states Western States
central-states Central States
st-louis St. Louis
detroit Detroit
big-time Big Time Wrestling
columbus Columbus
pacific-northwest Pacific Northwest
los-angeles Los Angeles
san-francisco San Francisco
arizona Arizona
intermountain Intermountain
stampede Stampede
awa AWA
wwf WWF / Capitol
indianapolis Indianapolis
wwa WWA