Arizona in 1925 - Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott, Flagstaff

The George F. Cram Company of Chicago, a firm established in 1867, published this map of Arizona in 1925 for its Unrivaled Atlas of the World, a large postwar reference work of 182 maps that updated state boundaries, counties, and city plans across the country in the wake of the First World War. By 1925 Arizona had been a state for thirteen years, and this sheet, printed in color with relief shown by hachures, tracks the roads and electric lines that were rapidly stitching the young state together, alongside its rivers, drainage, and township grid. The 182-map volume in which it appeared also carried statistical tables, a descriptive gazetteer, and a chronological account of the First World War, reflecting the scope Cram brought to his postwar publications.

Phoenix, Arizona's capital since statehood, anchors the map at the heart of the Salt River Valley's expanding irrigated farmland. Tucson remained the state's second city and cultural center, while Prescott, once the territorial capital, held its place in the central mountains as a mining and ranching town. Flagstaff, gateway to the Grand Canyon and the San Francisco Peaks, appears in the state's high northern country. Roads and electric lines threaded across the map reflect just how quickly Arizona's young cities were being wired and connected in the years after statehood. The Colorado River defines Arizona's western and northern boundary on the map, a natural border that would soon draw national attention with the coming of large-scale dam projects.

This 1925 Cram sheet pairs naturally with the 1909 Cram and Davis atlas map of Arizona also in this collection, letting a viewer track the state's transformation across statehood and into the automobile age within a single publisher's house style. This print suits a collector building a run of Cram atlas maps, or anyone with a personal connection to Phoenix, Tucson, or Flagstaff. It ships unframed and is available in multiple sizes, ready for a home office or study.