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The Best 19th-Century Bird's-Eye View of Salt Lake City. Only Four Examples Traced - All in Institutions.
Fantastic Augustus Koch color-lithographed view of Salt Lake City, seen from the southwest, twenty-three years after its founding.
Grandview, Lookout, and Twin Peaks of the Wasatch Range form the background, while the majority of the image is filled by the city's famous street grid layout. The Salt Lake Temple and New Tabernacle are prominently depicted. The Temple is shown as completed, though in reality construction was not finished until 1893. The extent of cultivation within the city is striking: many of the streets are lined with trees, and most homes seem to have their own orchard. This was enabled by the irrigation system fed by City Creek, which can be seen descending from the mountains into a holding pond not far from the Temple.
Eight architectural vignettes are placed at the lower corners, including commercial buildings, the courthouse and city hall, and the home of Brigham Young. Forty-nine locations in the image are identified by numeric tags, and a legend at the bottom of the page identifies them, including the Temple and Old and New Tabernacles, as well as schools, businesses, and public buildings. Though the city was still young, the view reveals an extensive metropolis.
This is one of the earliest views produced by Koch and is certainly one of the most important of his Western views.
Rarity
This may be the only version of this view to appear on the antiquarian market. Reps records only the four institutional impressions mentioned above, and we find no record of others having appeared on the antiquarian market.
Augustus Koch (1840-?) was one of the most prolific American engravers of Birds Eye Views working outside of the major publishing centers. Koch initially served in the Union Army during the Civil War as a clerk and draughtsman in the Engineers Office in St. Louis. Although his English was poor, he was later commissioned as an officer and assigned to one of the Black regiments serving in Mississippi where he drew maps for the advancing Union forces. By 1865 he is thought to have contracted malaria and at 25, was discharged from the army.
By 1868, Koch had become an itinerant Bird's Eye View engraver. His earliest dated views are of Cedar Falls, Vinton, and Waterloo, Iowa. At that point his career seemed to take off and in rapid succession, maps by Koch were produced in every section of the country. In 1870 he produced 5 maps in Utah, Wyoming and California. In all, Koch produced over 100 views, including over 20 Texas Views, during a career of 30 years. His last recorded view was produced in Montana in 1898.
Reps notes that while Koch engraved fewer views than some of his contemporaries, "no American viewmaker traveled more widely in search of subjects. . . "
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