The airport, originally named Houston Intercontinental, was conceived in the late 1950s to relieve traffic from William P. Hobby Airport. Architects William Pereira and John Portman designed a modest terminal layout, mapping the runway, parking aprons, and a single passenger concourse. The first map, printed on paper and displayed at the ticket office, highlighted the north‑south runway configuration and a handful of service roads, offering travelers a basic geographical reference.

In the early 1970s, a second runway was added and the terminal was expanded to accommodate growing international traffic. The updated map introduced color‑coded zones—red for arrivals, blue for departures—and began to incorporate roadways leading to the newly constructed access highway (now I‑45). This iteration marked the first attempt to merge functional navigation with passenger wayfinding, setting a template that would be refined through subsequent decades of expansion.