Subject: Northwestern United States
Period: 1860 (circa)
Publication:
Color: Hand Color
A. Johnson's Washington and Oregon, by Johnson & Browning, circa 1860 (15.9 x 12.4"). A handsome and colorful map of the Pacific Northwest with Washington Territory wrapping around Oregon and extending south to Utah and east to Nebraska Territory. County development is mostly limited to the coastal areas. At the time of publication, Oregon was a state, but the county configuration here is only current up to 1856, when it was still a territory. Josephine County has formed out of Jackson, but their positions are reversed. Very little information is displayed in the area of today's Idaho except for Fort Hall, the nearby Cantonment Loring, and an early reference to Soda Springs as "Beer or Soda Springs." The map locates numerous forts including Boise, Benton, Owen, Colville, and Hall. The important landmarks of Three Buttes and the Three Tetons are noted in the lower portion of Washington Territory.
B. Map of Oregon, Washington, and Part of British Columbia, by Samuel Augustus Mitchell Jr., dated 1860 (13.3 x 10.7"). In 1859, Oregon became a state and in the process Washington Territory gained land from Oregon that eventually became Idaho and part of Montana. The map clearly shows the Oregon Trail, and the Emigrant Wagon Road to California. The entire eastern half of Oregon is unorganized with Klamath, Curry and Wasgoren (likely an editing error for Wasco) counties being the furthest east. The eastern part of the state is labeled as unexplored. Klamath County was not organized until 1882, so its appearance here is a mystery, as the decorative floral border of this edition was replaced long before 1882.
References:
Condition: A
Nice examples with light toning confined to the sheet edges.