Kentucky in 1901 - Louisville, Frankfort, Lexington

George F. Cram published this map of Louisville in the 1901 edition of his Standard American Railway System Atlas of the World, printed in Chicago and New York and singled out in the atlas's own advertising as containing "the largest scale and clearest print of any atlas maps published" for its American city plans. The Louisville sheet is rendered in printed color rather than hand-tinting, a faster production method Cram had adopted by 1901 that still allowed his engravers to separate the street grid, parkland, and rail lines with reasonable clarity. The map covers Louisville, Kentucky at the turn of the century, when the city's position on the Ohio River had made it the state's dominant commercial center, its economy built on the river trade, the bourbon and tobacco industries, and a rail network radiating out toward the rest of the South.

The Ohio River runs along the top of the sheet, forming Louisville's natural northern boundary and the reason the city could grow into the region's leading inland port. The street grid is laid out in tight, regular blocks stretching south from the riverfront, the organized plan typical of American river cities built up quickly around a single central harbor. Several parks and open green spaces are marked across the map, reflecting the city-planning priorities of a Louisville that had grown wealthy enough by 1901 to set aside land for public recreation rather than building over every available lot. Railroad lines cross the sheet from multiple directions, tracing the connections that carried Kentucky's bourbon, tobacco, and livestock trade north and south along the Ohio corridor.

A fitting gift for a Louisville or Kentucky family with river-trade or distilling roots, a Bluegrass State transplant setting up a new home, or a collector rounding out a set of Cram's 1901 Southern and border-state city maps. It is available unframed in a full range of sizes, from a compact study print to a larger statement piece for a den or office.