Montana in 1883 - Helena, Billings, Missoula

This Montana map comes from Cram's Unrivaled Family Atlas of the World, copyrighted in 1883 by George Franklin Cram and published in Chicago by A.C. Shewey and Co. Contemporary cataloguers describe it as the first "mass production" world atlas Cram ever issued, a first edition bound with sixty-five maps and a page of advertisements for the firm's other titles at the back. It's a snapshot of how a Gilded Age publisher pushed detailed, affordable geography out to homes and offices across a rapidly growing country.

The Montana sheet is printed in full and outline color at a scale of roughly 1:2,260,000, with the territory's border picked out in red and relief suggested through hachure shading rather than contour lines. The map marks the Rocky Mountains and the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, along with railroad lines and several Indian reservations, a reminder that in 1883 Montana was still six years away from statehood. Two prime meridians, Greenwich and Washington, run along the edges, a small holdover from an era when American cartographers hadn't yet settled on a single reference point.

A print like this suits anyone with Montana roots, a family that homesteaded in the territory generations back, a transplant who left the state and wants a piece of it on the wall, or a collector working through Cram's 1883 atlas maps one state at a time. It also makes a fitting housewarming, birthday, or anniversary gift for a Montanan. Every print ships unframed and is offered in multiple sizes, so you can pick the scale that fits your wall.