Arizona in 1898 - Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott

George F. Cram published this map of Arizona Territory in 1898, at a point when his Chicago firm had become one of the country's leading producers of commercial atlas maps through its adoption of the cerographic, or wax-engraving, printing process pioneered by the Morse family. That technique, which spread through firms like Cram and Rand McNally during the 1880s, allowed publishers to update their plates quickly as new counties, railroads, and towns appeared across the fast-changing American West. This sheet colors Arizona by county and marks Indian reservations, military forts, and mines alongside the territory's expanding railroad network, with Phoenix, established as the territorial capital just a decade earlier, clearly marked at the heart of the Salt River Valley.

Tucson appears as the territory's older commercial center and former capital, still a key stop on the Southern Pacific line running toward California, while Prescott, the first territorial capital, is shown administering the mining country of the central highlands. The map records forts, railroad stations, post offices, and rivers across a territory still more than a decade from statehood, with reservation lands for the Navajo, Apache, and other Native nations marked across large stretches of the north and east. This density of administrative and infrastructural detail reflects Arizona's rapid transformation during the 1890s from a raw mining frontier into a more settled, if still sparsely populated, American territory.

This map makes a fine gift for a family with Arizona roots, for a transplant now settled in Phoenix or Tucson, or for a collector of territorial Southwestern maps. It is available unframed in a range of sizes.