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Scarce promotional map, advertising land in south central North Dakota owned by the Boynton Land Company, which had recently been purchased from the Northern Pacific Railroad as part of one of the largest land purchases in America in the 20th Century.

The map provides a detailed overview of the lands owned by the Boynton Land Company, owned by Carlos N. Boynton and Leslie Sylvester Hackney, two of the most prolific North Dakota speculators in the first decade of the 20th Centuryl. The promotional list provides a host of reasons to invest in North Dakota's future, including a table of official statistics listing many enticing facts, including the strong public schools with low student-teacher ratios and per capital wealth of Dakota's inhabitants. Details on the 1903 crop year, farming statistics, cost and yields and competitive advantages of the state (which out-performed all other states at the 1904 World's Fair for Agricultural awards!

The map provides an excellent snapshot of the explosive growth in North Dakota in the first decade of the 20th Century, when the railroads were just reaching the region. The extensive (if largely still just proposed) railroad system is depicted, as are many thriving towns. Note the estimated population of 500,000 in 1904, versus its current population of about 640,000.

Carlos N. Boynton of St. Paul, Minnesota, was successful real estate promoter, with vast real estate holdings in Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana and Maine (Boynton sold a 200,000 tract of Timber Land in 1907, reported by the NY Times on Auguest 3, 1907 as the largest timberland transaction in the state's history). The Boynton Land Company was one of the most active promoters of farm lands west of Minnesota in the early 20th Century. Boynton was also an accomplished owner and breeder of trotting horses.

Boynton and his partner, Leslie Sylvester Hackney, were among the most active speculators of the period in this region. Hackney began as a farm equipment salesman in the 1870s, he moved to Minneapolis and by the 1890s, had begun speculating in real estate with some of his farmer clients. He began buying large tracts of land, leading to the purchase by the Hackney-Boynton Land Company of 1,250,000 acres of land along the Northern Pacific Railway's lands in North Dakota, which was the largest real estate land transaction in the history of the region. Hackney and Boynton organized a force of 1500 agents and resulted in sales of over 700,000 acres of land to settlers, farmers and speculators.