North Dakota in 1893 - Bismarck, Fargo, Grand Forks

The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago drew tens of millions of visitors to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas, and George F. Cram's publishing house marked the occasion with an atlas sold and given away well beyond the fairgrounds, including, in this case, through Wood Brothers Cash Store in Unadilla, New York. Among the ninety state and territory maps bound into that volume is this sheet for North Dakota, printed the same year the state marked only its fourth anniversary of admission to the Union.

The map lays out North Dakota's counties in outline color, with red boundary lines separating each one and hachures used to suggest the gentle relief of the prairie and the river breaks along the Missouri and Red River valleys. Cities and towns are marked at the scale the map allows, 1:2,000,000, and the sheet references both the Greenwich and Washington prime meridians in keeping with the atlas's standard format. As a snapshot of a young state barely settled beyond its rail lines and county seats, it captures North Dakota at an early and formative moment.

It's a natural pick for anyone with North Dakota homesteader ancestry, for a relative who grew up there and later settled elsewhere, or for a collector building out a full set of Cram's 1893 state maps. It also works well as a housewarming or anniversary gift for someone with ties to the state. The print is offered unframed and in a range of sizes, so it can be ordered to match the space you have in mind.