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Description

Rare first state of Charles Desilver's map of the region west of the Misissippi River to west of the Rocky Mountains, issued at the end of 1855.

This rare early state of Desilver's mid-continent map still uses the old decorative border style characteristic of Cowpertherwait's maps, published prior to Desilver's acquistion of the New Universal Atlas in 1855. While the map bears a date of 1850, the map did not appear in any edition of the atlas issued by Thomas Cowperthwait or Cowperthwait Bulter & Desilver and clearly could not pre-date the creation of Kansas Territory on May 30, 1854.

Desilver's mid-continent map is a remarkably unique work for the time period. The map is rich with early immigrant information, Indian details, forts, roads, Indian Treaty notes, early explorers routes, Indian Battle grounds, Indian Reservations, trading posts and a host of other excellent notes and features.

The map actually has its own symbol for trading posts, a rare appearance on a map of the period. This early edition includes fewer counties in New Mexico and a few other differences than the more common Desilver editions, issued in 1856 and after.

This map rarely appears on the market. Only the third time (1992-2015) that we have had the first edition of this map.

Condition Description
Minor abrasions to decorative border at left side of map.