{"product_id":"northern-michigan-in-1879-marquette-sault-ste-marie-houghton","title":"Northern Michigan in 1879 - Marquette, Sault Ste. Marie, Houghton","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis map of Northern Michigan and Lake Superior was published in 1879 by Rand McNally \u0026amp; Co. of Chicago as a companion sheet to the firm's full state map of Michigan within the fourth edition of their Business Atlas, one of the most widely consulted commercial reference works of the Gilded Age. Like its companion, the sheet is finished in outline color by county with named railroad lines and relief shown by hachures, but here the focus narrows to the state's Upper Peninsula and the southern shore of Lake Superior, a region growing too significant to leave to a single general map. It covers Michigan's mineral-rich north country. By 1879 this region was in the grip of a copper and iron mining boom, its isolated ranges being knit together by new rail lines built specifically to move ore down to the lake ports.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMarquette, on Lake Superior's southern shore, had grown into the principal shipping port for the iron ranges of the interior, its docks built specifically to load ore onto lake freighters. Sault Ste. Marie, at the strait linking Lake Superior to Lake Huron, controlled the locks through which nearly all of the region's copper and iron traffic had to pass. Houghton, seated on the Keweenaw Peninsula, sat at the heart of the copper country that had drawn prospectors and mining companies north since the 1840s. Lake Superior itself dominates the sheet, its vast cold water shaping both the isolation and the mineral wealth of the towns strung along its shore. Together these places capture a frontier of American industry still being opened up mine by mine in the late 1870s.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis map makes a fitting gift for anyone with roots in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, or for a collector drawn to the mining and rail history of the Lake Superior country. Buyers should note we also carry this same Upper Peninsula and Lake Superior region as mapped five years earlier by Gray in 1874, as well as the full state of Michigan on the companion sheet from this same 1879 Rand McNally atlas; this edition offers the most current view of the region's rail network at the height of its copper and iron boom. It is available unframed in a full range of sizes, from a compact study print to a larger statement piece.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TheMapVault","offers":[{"title":"16x20 inch - UNFRAMED","offer_id":58525531341131,"sku":"SKU1669-16x20","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"A2 (42x60cm) - UNFRAMED","offer_id":58525531373899,"sku":"SKU1669-A2","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"18x24 inch - UNFRAMED","offer_id":58525531406667,"sku":"SKU1669-18x24","price":35.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"50x70 cm - UNFRAMED","offer_id":58525531439435,"sku":"SKU1669-50x70","price":41.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"A1 (60x84cm) - UNFRAMED","offer_id":58525531472203,"sku":"SKU1669-A1","price":55.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"24x32 inch - UNFRAMED","offer_id":58525531504971,"sku":"SKU1669-24x32","price":55.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"70x100 cm - UNFRAMED","offer_id":58525531537739,"sku":"SKU1669-70x100","price":69.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"75x100 cm - UNFRAMED","offer_id":58525531570507,"sku":"SKU1669-75x100","price":69.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"A0 (84x119cm) - UNFRAMED","offer_id":58525531603275,"sku":"SKU1669-A0","price":76.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0907\/2456\/5323\/files\/SKU1669.jpg?v=1789752073","url":"https:\/\/www.themapvault.com\/en-us\/products\/northern-michigan-in-1879-marquette-sault-ste-marie-houghton","provider":"TheMapVault","version":"1.0","type":"link"}