Boston Rare MapsSpecializing in antique American maps & prints
A large, decorative and very scarce promotional map of Mount Desert Island, Blue Hill, Deer Isle, and vicinity, issued around 1880 for the Boston & Maine Railroad. Glaciated and mountainous, the dramatic and rugged landscape of Maine’s Mount Desert Island is absolutely unique on the East Coast of the United States. It was thus no […]
![Geo[rge] H. Walker & Co., Birds-Eye View from Summit of Mt. Washington; White Mountains, New Hampshire. Boston: Passenger Department of Boston & Maine R.R., 1902.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/BRM3142-Walker-Mount-Washington_lowres-150x150.jpg)
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 […]
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 […]
![[ Transcontinental Railroad ] A.M. Smith, General Passenger Agent of the Rock Island Railroad / Rand, McNally & Co., Map Engravers and Printers, TRANS CONTINENTAL ROUTE ILLUSTRATED CROSSING THE SWITZERLAND OF AMERICA / PANORAMIC MAP OF THE GREAT OVERLAND ROUTE FROM OCCIDENT TO ORIENT. EUROPE TO CHINA, JAPAN & AUSTRALIA. Chicago: A.M. Smith, 1876.](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/BRM3564-Switzerland-of-America_covers-e1589105215189-150x150.jpg)
A delightful illustrated strip map promoting the Chicago Rock Island Railroad and its connections with the Transcontinental 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 Transcontinental Railroad from Chicago to California along the Chicago Rock Island, Union […]
![[ 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 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 striking and unrecorded 1897 map of Alaska, issued by an eastern railroad attempting to cash in on gold fever at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush. Owned in partnership with James Arsenault & Company. The map embraces Alaska, the westernmost portion of the North West Territory (including what would become Yukon Territory the […]
An amazing and detailed bird`s-eye view of the summit of Mount Washington, to my mind the most spectacular White Mountains image ever published 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 […]
![[Superior Wisconsin] Hallock-Harmon-Leader Co., PERSPECTIVE MAP OF THE CITY OF SUPERIOR, WIS. Milwaukee: American Publishing Co., [1893?]](https://bostonraremaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/BRM3246-Superior-WI-ca-1890_lowres-150x150.jpg)
A rare bird’s-eye view promoting the economic ambitions of Superior, Wisconsin near the turn of the 20thcentury. The view depicts the city as seen looking south or southwest from an imaginary point high above the far west end of Lake Superior. The unnamed artist has played with both orientation and scale so as to emphasize […]
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 […]