Missouri Map 1836 State Print - St. Louis, Jefferson City, Independence

Henry Schenck Tanner issued this map of Missouri in Philadelphia within the 1836 edition of his New Universal Atlas, conceived as a more compact and accessible successor to his monumental New American Atlas and quickly established as one of the most reliable cartographic reference works of the Jacksonian era. This particular issue is defined by a single controversial event: the cartographic debut of the "Missouri Addition of 1836," better known as the Platte Purchase, the treaty negotiated by William Clark that extended Missouri's northwestern boundary out to the natural barrier of the Missouri River. The acquisition proved deeply contentious in Washington, since it effectively expanded a slave state north of the 36°30′ parallel, undermining the fragile geographic balance struck by the Missouri Compromise of 1820, and Tanner's prompt inclusion of the new boundary makes this issue a genuinely significant political document as much as a geographic one.

St. Louis dominates the map as Missouri's principal commercial hub, its importance underscored by an extensive table of steamboat routes calculating distances along the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri rivers out to Shawneetown, Prairie du Chien and the mouth of the Kansas River. Jefferson City anchors the state capital on the Missouri River, while Independence sits at the western edge of settlement, soon to become the launching point for wagon trains heading further west. North of the Missouri River, the newly acquired Platte Purchase lands appear alongside the older "Bounty Lands" tract across Chariton and Carroll counties, set aside to reward War of 1812 veterans. The state's southern half remains organized into oversized counties including Ripley, Pulaski and Crawford, not yet subdivided to match the pace of settlement.

This map makes a pointed gift for a Missouri family with roots in the Platte Purchase counties, or for a collector interested in the cartographic record of the sectional tensions building toward the Civil War. The store's 1839 Tanner Missouri sheet, issued just three years later, shows the state's county map already filling in behind this edition's fresh boundary lines, making the two a natural pair for tracing Missouri's rapid 1830s expansion. It is available unframed in a full range of sizes, from a compact print for a study to a large-format piece for an office or living room.