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Description

Scarce 1881 edition of Crofutt's Grip-Sack Guide of Colorado, complete with an early Louis Nell map of the state.

The map meticulously depicts the geographical and topographical details of the state, including mountain elevations. Wagon roads, trails, and railroads both existing and proposed are depicted. Counties are shown in different colors. Nell worked on the 1871-1879 Wheeler Surveys and gained a significant amount of information from this work, which he ultimately employed in producing what is, without doubt, the best large format map of the state of the period and became a huge commercial success. Nell notes railroads, proposed railroads, wagon roads, proposed wagon roads, trails, county seats, post offices, villages, townships subdivided and surveyed, contour lines, military reservations, private grants, areas of each county, astronomical positions, arable lands, and a host of other details.

Nell succeeded Thayer as the most important map maker in Colorado and continued publishing maps until the early 1900s.

Louis Nell first came to the west in the mid-1870s as a member of Captain George Wheeler’s survey. Nell was so impressed by Colorado that he settled there and began to publish a series of detailed maps of the state.

An essential map for Colorado collectors.

Condition Description
Quarto, publisher's brown cloth gilt-lettered on front cover: "Crofutt's | Grip Sack | Guide to Colorado". Hand-colored folding map and wood-engraved plates, including a folding city view of Leadville.