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"This map shows Seattle before the boom of the nineties, with the original subdivisions and ownerships named and blocked out in different colors." -- Streeter
Large hand-colored lithographed map of Seattle with street-level detail published just after Washington's admission to the Union in 1889. An inset map of Puget Sound shows transportation routes to the city, while a further inset shows the general transportation situation in the state. Hand-colored by developments.
The map names many landowners, railroads, wharves, and docks.
The map was issued as an ad for real estate broker John A. Milroy and the Union Pacific Railroad.
This map was published in the same year (1890) as Whitney's Map of the City of Spokane Falls, no doubt on the advent of Washington becoming a state. The copyright date is 1889.
This would seem to be one of two editions of the map issued in 1890, both of which are very rare. The differences include:
- Different real estate agent issuing the map. John Milroy in one, J.E. Akin & Co. in the other
- Placement of the copyright credit different. Centered in this copy, moved to the left in the Milroy copy.
- Printer credit in this map is LH Everts. In the other, Everts & Howell.
Oliver Phelps Anderson
Oliver Phelps (O.P. Anderson) is one of Seattle's first indigenous map publishing companies. Anderson was an amateur photographer and owner of a photographic supplies business in Seattle in the early 1900s. Anderson first worked as a bookkeeper in Seattle in the early 1880s, though by the end of that decade he was doing business as a draughtsman.
The earliest maps bearing Anderson's name appear in about 1885, including the name "Anderson Brothers." Most of these early maps are blue print maps, a style of mapmaking which was becoming more common in the 1880s with publishers looking to produce fast inexpensive maps that were quickly and easily updateable. This form of map was very popular in the west, where the rapid growth of communities, train lines and mining regions were especially robust. The first map jointly issued by Anderson and Whitworth & Thomson was West Seattle five acre tracts . . ., blue print map of a hand drawn plat map from the records of Kings County, circa 1885.
Anderson formed his civil engineering and map publishing business, O.P. Anderson & Co., in the early 1890s, with the business changing its name to the O.P. Anderson Map & Blue Print Co. by the mid 1890s. Beginning around 1900, Anderson began selling photographic supplies as president of Anderson Supply Co., located at 111 Cherry Street in Seattle.
Around 1913, Anderson's son, Maurice P. Anderson, took over as president of the company, and Anderson acted as secretary-manager, a position he continued to hold until around 1940, probably until his death. Anderson Supply Co. continued to do business, with Maurice Anderson as president, until the late 1950s.
Rarity
Early separately issued maps of Seattle, prior to 1890, are quite rare on the market. We note no pre-1890 plans of this size or larger in AMPR going back more than 30 years and no auction records for pre-1889 Seattle maps listed on RareBookHub after 1957.
The last example at auction was in the Thomas Streeter Sale, in 1969.
OCLC locates 4 examples (Yale, Harvard, Bancroft, U of Washington).