Chicago, Illinois, 1871 – 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 Chicago, Illinois, 1871. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.
Library of Congress record: Bird's-eye-view of Chicago as it was before the great fire
Framed, it is ready for the wall; unframed, it is ready for the frame you choose. It brings character to any room and makes a memorable gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Since 2001, Snapshots of the Past has shipped historic prints to tens of thousands of customers around the world.
Chicago, Illinois, 1871
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Theodore R. Davis drew Chicago in 1871, when the city held roughly 300,000 people, most of them packed between the north and south branches of the Chicago River and the shore of Lake Michigan. Its wealth came from moving goods. Grain and livestock arrived by rail from the prairie and left by lake steamer, and the Illinois Central ran trains along the lakefront on a causeway the city kept extending into the water. Germans, Irish, Scandinavians, and Bohemians made up a large share of the population, and their churches, saloons, and halls spread across the north and west sides. The Water Tower and Pumping Station on Chicago Avenue, finished in 1869 to bring lake water inland, was the city's proudest civic work that year.
| Created / published | 1871 |
|---|---|
| Creator | davis, theodore r. |
| Notes | An original bird's-eye view map of Chicago, Illinois, drawn in 1871. 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--Illinois |
| Source | Library of Congress, Panoramic Maps |
| Original scan | 6,263 × 4,647 px · prints to 21 × 15 in at 300 dpi |
| Library of Congress title | Bird's-eye-view of Chicago as it was before the great fire |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-OYK-488566 |
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