Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota Territory in 1859 - St. Paul, Pembina, Sioux Falls

This map of Minnesota Territory was drawn by J.H. Young and published by Charles Desilver of Philadelphia within Mitchell's New Universal Atlas, the final edition of a series that had run continuously since Tanner's first edition of 1836 and one of the most widely used American atlases of its era. Rather than update the map to reflect Minnesota's recent statehood, this 1859 printing deliberately reissued the older 1857 map under its territorial title, its counties tinted in color, relief shown by hachures, and the lands of Native American tribes carefully marked across the surrounding country. It covers the vast Minnesota Territory as it stood in the late 1850s, a region that then extended well into what would later become North and South Dakota. This was a pivotal moment for the region, captured just as Minnesota itself was crossing from territory to statehood in 1858 while the Dakota country further west remained largely unorganized.

St. Paul, on the Mississippi River, is marked as the territorial capital, its position at the practical head of river navigation having made it the gateway through which nearly all settlers and goods entered the territory. Pembina, far to the north along the Red River, appears as one of the territory's oldest trading settlements, a fur-trade outpost long predating the organized counties further south. Sioux Falls, newly founded in the mid-1850s along the Big Sioux River, represents the leading edge of settlement pushing into what would become South Dakota. Across the western reaches of the map, the territories of numerous Native American tribes are recorded by name, a reminder that most of this vast country remained under Native governance even as counties were being drawn on paper. Together these details capture a territory whose settled edge and unorganized interior sat only a few days' travel apart.

This map makes a fitting gift for anyone with roots in Minnesota, North Dakota, or South Dakota, or for a collector interested in the territorial period before the Dakotas and Minnesota took their modern shape. Buyers should note we also carry Minnesota after statehood, mapped by Asher & Adams in 1874 once its railroad network had matured; this 1859 Mitchell and Young edition instead preserves an earlier moment, when Minnesota was only just becoming a state and the Dakota country beyond it remained largely under Native American governance. It is available unframed in a full range of sizes, from a compact study print to a larger statement piece.