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Description

Scarce 1916 bird's-eye view of the Columbia River Gorge, by Oregon's best mapmaker of the 20th century, Fred Routledge.

A wonderful bird's-eye view map of the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington, looking east from the Pacific Ocean towards Mt. Hood and beyond.

The tall map has the mouth of the Columbia at the bottom, Portland, Oregon, in the middle, and Mount Hood and the Deschutes River at the top.

This map appeared in many editions, but this is among the earliest and scarcest. This map was copyrighted by F.W. Baltes and Company and issued for the Union Pacific System.

This is a beautiful example of Fred A. Routledge's characteristic stylized realism, which he deployed to great effect in his views and maps of Oregon and the surrounding areas.

Routledge appears to have been greatly motivated in his work by the advent of commercial air travel, which he often explicitly references in his maps and views.

Condition Description
Folding bird's-eye view map printed front and back.
Fred A. Routledge Biography

Fred Routledge (1871-1936) was an Oregon artist and pictorial mapmaker, who spent much of his professional life as a correspondent for the Morning Oregonian. His career lasted from the 1890s to the early 1930s. Routledge was a well regarded artist, who received awards for his paintings, including a first prize at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco. His ephemeral work as a pictorial cartographer was also very well regarded.

Routledge was born in Abilene, Kansas, raised in Rockford, Illinois, and settled in the Portland area in 1886 with his family. He began working as an illustrator with the West Shore publication before its demise in 1891, thereafter finding wor at the Oregonian in 1895. The January 1, 1896 "Where Rolls the Oregon," is his first work of significant note.