Boston Rare MapsSpecializing in antique American maps & prints
A spectacular promotional bird’s-eye view of Mount Washington and the White Mountains, issued by the Boston & Maine Railroad. By the early 20th century the Lakes and White Mountain regions of New Hampshire were major tourist destinations, with a well-developed network of hotels and resort towns and villages. With the proliferation of the automobile some […]
![[ Patillo Higgins ] / Nelson & White, Engineers and Architects, RAILROAD MAP OF TEXAS, LOUISIANA AND PART OF MISSISSIPPI. HIGGINS STANDARD OIL COMPANY. L’TD. CAPITAL STOCK $10,000,000. [Beaumont: Higgins Standard Oil Company,] Nov. 1901 [but probably 1902.]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/BRM3292-Higgins-Standard-Oil-1902_lowres-e1558105495923-150x150.jpg)
An extraordinarily rare promotional map published by Patillo Higgins, the Father of Texas Oil, just months after the gusher at Spindletop transformed the global oil industry. Born in Sabine Pass, Texas in 1863 but spending most of his life in Beaumont, Higgins’ early years were marked among other things by violent racism and the killing […]
A separately-issued, detailed and extremely rare promotional map of Harris County Texas, published at a transitional moment in the region’s history. The map was published in the immediate aftermath of two epochal events in the history of southeast Texas: the catastrophic Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the discovery of oil at Spindletop in 1901, which […]
A detailed thematic map of coffee cultivation in Colombia, issued in 1933 by the National Federation of Coffee Growers. The map uses red dots to indicate the “coffee districts,” concentrated primarily in the Andean highlands. Flanking it to the right are tables listing distances from growing districts to oceanic ports, steamship companies engaged in the […]
A spectacular and superlatively rare promotional tract map and birdseye view of the Perrin Colony, located near the town of Fresno, California. The work provides a fine illustration of the first Perrin Colony, one of the earliest large scale farming colonies near the newly formed City of Fresno, which was incorporated in 1885. The plat […]
An extremely rare promotional map of the world, given to participants in an Esperanto course offered at Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Though the map is undated, the Esperanto Center was active from the mid 1920s into the 1930s, and I find an announcement of just such a course in De Eerste Heemsteedsche Courant for Jan. […]
A striking and unusual promotional album issued by the Buffalo-based map publisher Whitney-Graham Company, featuring numerous maps of American rail and utility networks. The album consists of a page of introductory text, followed by a total of 20 maps pasted on 13 leaves. An introductory page of text proudly states that the volume offers “Unmistakable evidence of the highest […]
A marvelous chromolithograph promotional poster for the Saint Paul Winter Carnival. The Saint Paul Winter Carnival is the oldest of its kind in the United States. It was first held in 1886 in response to, of all things, a slight by the Eastern media: “Several Eastern newspaper correspondents kindled the start of the Winter Carnival by […]
An exuberant two-color promotional broadside for the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railway, promising “The Shortest! The Safest! The Quickest! The Best! Route to All Points West.” The St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railway had its origins in 1851 as the Northern Missouri Railroad, one of several chartered and financed by the State […]
A delightful illustrated railroad strip map promoting the Chicago Rock Island Railroad and its connections with the Trans Continental Railroad and steamer routes to Europe and Asia. This remarkable folding map, only six inches high but nearly five feet long, highlights the route of the Trans Continental Railroad from Chicago to California along the Chicago […]