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Description

"The Colton maps [of Kansas] of the 1860s and 1870s are extremely fine maps." - Heaston, The Kansas Pocket Map, 16

A beautiful example of Colton's Sectional Map of Kansas, published in New York in 1869.

Whereas many prior maps of Kansas showed only the eastern "settled" part of the territory and then state, this Colton map focuses on the whole entity.

The division of the western part of the state into counties has not been fully completed at this point and the western quarter of the state is still undivided.

Heaston (16) says of the map:

One of the first Kansas maps split into two sections, dividing eastern from western Kansas. The Colton maps of the 1860s and 1870s are extremely fine maps. Wichita and Sedgwick County are not located. (The city of Wichita commenced postal service in February 1869, and this map was probably drawn in 1868. A large section of western Kansas was still unsurveyed.)

The Colton Sectional Maps are excellent and scarce. Often times they represent the best mapping of a given state during the 1860s and '70s.

Provenance

Deaccessioned from the Minnesota Historical Society.

Condition Description
Original hand-color by county. Folding map. Lithographed map on two sheets of paper. Western sheet detached from original embossed cloth folder, gilt-lettered: "Sectional Map of the State of Kansas Published by G.W. & C.B. Colton & Co. New York." Some fold toning.
Reference
Heaston, The Kansas Pocket Map, 16. Not in Phillips or Graff.
G.W. & C.B. Colton Biography

G. W. & C. B. Colton was a prominent family firm of mapmakers who were leaders in the American map trade in the nineteenth century. The business was founded by Joseph Hutchins Colton (1800-1893) who bought copyrights to existing maps and oversaw their production. By the 1850s, their output had expanded to include original maps, guidebooks, atlases, and railroad maps. Joseph was succeeded by his sons, George Woolworth (1827-1901) and Charles B. Colton (1831-1916). The firm was renamed G. W. & C. B. Colton as a result. George is thought responsible for their best-known work, the General Atlas, originally published under that title in 1857. In 1898, the brothers merged their business and the firm became Colton, Ohman, & Co., which operated until 1901, when August R. Ohman took on the business alone and dropped the Colton name.