Phoenix, Arizona, 1885 – Antique Wall Map
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
Few images capture their era like this antique map of Phoenix, Arizona, 1885. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.
Library of Congress record: Bird's eye view of Phoenix, Maricopa Co., Arizona
Framed, it is ready for the wall; unframed, it is ready for the frame you choose. Perfect for a home, office, library or classroom wall, and a gift with a story behind it. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past has been bringing history to the wall since 2001, for tens of thousands of customers worldwide.
Phoenix, Arizona, 1885
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Phoenix, Arizona, in 1885 was a young irrigation town on the Salt River, built on canals that Hohokam farmers had dug centuries earlier and that settlers led by Jack Swilling had revived in the late 1860s. The townsite was platted in 1870, and the town had become the seat of Maricopa County, but the territorial capital still sat at Prescott and no railroad yet reached the valley. Its economy rested on wheat, barley, alfalfa and orchard fruit grown on irrigated fields around town, with merchants supplying miners and ranchers across the territory. The street grid shown here would soon change, as the railroad arrived in 1887 and the legislature moved the capital to Phoenix in 1889.
| Created / published | 1885 |
|---|---|
| Creator | schmidt label & litho. co, dyer, c. j. |
| Notes | An original bird's-eye view map of Phoenix, Arizona, drawn in 1885. Bird's-eye view maps were drawn by travelling artists who walked a town street by street, sketching every building from an imagined vantage point in the air, then sold the finished lithograph door to door by subscription. Roughly five thousand American towns were recorded this way between the 1860s and the 1920s, and for many of them the panoramic map is the most complete picture of the place that survives. Reproduced from the original in the Library of Congress collections. Printed to order on archival paper. Free shipping on all US orders. |
| Subjects | Panoramic maps--Arizona |
| Source | Library of Congress, Panoramic Maps |
| Original scan | 9,879 × 6,608 px · prints to 33 × 22 in at 300 dpi |
| Library of Congress title | Bird's eye view of Phoenix, Maricopa Co., Arizona |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-OYK-487824 |
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