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Detailed separately-issued map of Yellowstone showing the layout of the nation's first national park at the beginning of the twentieth century. The map is finely detailed, showing all of the park plus the region to the east up to Bighorn County, in today's Park County.
The map has good topographical detail with contour intervals at 100 feet at a scale of 1 inch to 4 miles. The Upper, Shoshone, Gibbon, and Heart Lake Geyser Basins are named, along with the Mud Geysers, Mammoth Hot Springs, and Old Faithful Hotel.
Circles show ranger stations and snowshoe cabins and completed and projected roads are shown as well. Saddle trails are also indicated.
An earlier edition of the map did not include snowshoe cabins.
Julius Bien (1826-1909) was a German-born American lithographer and cartographer, renowned for his significant contributions to American cartography during the 19th century. Born on September 27, 1826, in Naumburg, Germany, Bien originally trained in his homeland, mastering the nascent craft of chromolithography, a method for producing multi-color prints.
In the 1850s, Bien emigrated to the United States, where he set up his own lithography firm, Julius Bien & Co., in New York. His innovative techniques and meticulous attention to detail quickly earned him a reputation as one of the country's leading lithographers. The firm became known for its wide range of work, from maps and atlases to commercial prints and illustrations.
One of Bien's most significant collaborations was with the U.S. government, particularly the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). In the late 19th century, the USGS undertook the ambitious project of mapping the entire United States. Bien's firm was responsible for producing many of these topographical maps, and he introduced advanced printing techniques that enhanced their clarity, precision, and detail.
However, not all of Bien's ventures were successful. His attempt at reproducing a double elephant folio edition of Audubon's Birds of America in the 1860s, for instance, was left incomplete due to financial challenges posed by the Civil War. Despite this, many of the plates he did produce for this edition are considered masterpieces of chromolithography.
Julius Bien passed away on December 21, 1909, in New York. His contributions to lithography and cartography in the U.S. left a lasting legacy, with many of his techniques becoming standard practice in the field. His maps, in particular, serve as a testament to the evolving understanding and depiction of the American landscape during a period of rapid westward expansion and scientific exploration.
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![Map of Oregon Territory. By Samuel Parker. 1838. [with:] Journal of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains, under the direction of the A. B. C. F. M. 1840.](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/97939.jpg)
