Illinois Map 1884 Township Print - Springfield, Chicago, Peoria

Samuel Augustus Mitchell Jr., working through Wm. M. Bradley & Bro. of Philadelphia, issued this Illinois sheet in 1884, part of his New General Atlas published in 1886. This printing carries a dedicated Chicago and vicinity inset alongside the statewide county map, a level of urban detail matching the city's rapid rise as the Midwest's dominant rail and commercial hub. The sheet maps Illinois statewide, showing settlements, railroads, and rivers across a state whose economy by the 1880s was increasingly centered on Chicago's growth.

The Chicago inset anchors the sheet's urban detail, capturing a city that had, in the years since the Great Fire of 1871, rebuilt itself into one of the country's largest and fastest-growing. County boundaries are laid out across the rest of the state in distinct colors, tracing a settlement pattern stretching from the Mississippi River in the west to Lake Michigan in the east. Railroads thread throughout the state, a dense network radiating outward from Chicago's rail yards. Together the Chicago inset, the counties, and the railroads sketch a state whose statewide development had become increasingly oriented around a single dominant city, even as its downstate counties kept their own distinct agricultural character.

For an Illinois family with Chicago or downstate roots, or a collector building out the state's maps across the decades, this sheet has a specific pull. The store also carries Illinois from Cram's 1893 and 1883 editions, Bradford's 1838 atlas, Asher & Adams' 1874 atlas, and Tanner's earlier 1841 sheet; this 1884 Mitchell sheet is the only one of the group to pair a dedicated Chicago inset with its statewide county detail. It's printed unframed and available in a range of sizes to fit whatever wall it's headed for.