Kentucky and Tennessee in 1883 - Louisville, Nashville, Memphis

This is the New Rail Road and County Map of Kentucky & Tennessee, a map from Cram's Unrivaled Family Atlas of the World, copyrighted 1883 by George Franklin Cram and published in Chicago by A.C. Shewey and Co. It's part of the first edition of Cram's first "mass production" world atlas, sixty-five maps produced to bring detailed geography within reach of a broad American audience.

The sheet is printed in full or outline color at a scale of about 1:2,280,000, with red lines marking state borders and green outlining the counties within Kentucky and Tennessee. As the title indicates, the map's central subject is the railroad network reaching across both states, with counties and major towns labeled throughout. Kentucky's bourbon distilleries, clustered in the bluegrass counties around Louisville and Frankfort, and the burley tobacco crop grown on both sides of the state line were the two industries the rail lines shown here existed mainly to serve. Both Greenwich and Washington prime meridians are noted on the sheet, and the volume includes a page of advertisements for other Cram maps and atlases.

This print suits anyone with Kentucky or Tennessee roots, a family that worked the rail lines shown here, a transplant who left the region, or a collector building a run of Cram's 1883 atlas maps. It also makes a fitting housewarming, birthday, or anniversary gift. Every print ships unframed and is available in multiple sizes.