Colorado in 1879 - Denver, Boulder, Pueblo, Leadville

Rand, McNally & Company published this map of Colorado in 1879 for their Business Atlas, the fourth edition of the Chicago firm's first great national atlas and one built to track the entire country's exploding rail system for a business and shipping audience. Rendered in outline color by county with relief shown through both hachures and spot elevations, the sheet reflects Colorado only three years after statehood in 1876, a period when the state's silver strikes were drawing prospectors and capital west at a remarkable pace. Named railroad lines crisscross the map, evidence of how fast Colorado's transportation network had grown in barely a decade. The atlas as a whole was bound in brown cloth with a train motif stamped in gilt on the cover, a fitting emblem for a publication built entirely around the nation's railroads.

Denver, the new state's capital, anchors the map as its political and commercial center. Boulder, at the foot of the Front Range, had already become home to the University of Colorado, chartered in 1876, while Pueblo continued to grow as a steel and rail hub to the south. Leadville, high in the central Rockies, was in the midst of a silver boom that would soon make it one of the largest cities in the state. The map's railroad lines trace the routes carrying ore, supplies, and settlers between these towns and the mountain mining camps beyond.

A second impression of this same 1879 Rand McNally Colorado map is also offered in this collection; where that copy is presented with Pueblo and Leadville as its leading southern and mountain towns, this sheet is shown centered on Denver and Boulder along the Front Range, letting a buyer choose the regional focus that suits their own Colorado connection. Either makes a fitting gift for a Denver-area native, a Colorado transplant, or a collector of Rand McNally's early state atlases. This print ships unframed and is available in multiple sizes.