South Dakota in 1893 - Sioux Falls, Rapid City, Pierre

The Columbian World's Fair Atlas that this map comes from was a substantial piece of publishing in its own right: 194 pages bound in brown cloth with a gilt-stamped title, holding ninety separate maps of the states and territories alongside views of the 1893 Chicago fairgrounds. George F. Cram produced the volume, and Wood Brothers Cash Store of Unadilla, New York, distributed it to its customers that year as a promotional keepsake tied to the Columbian Exposition. This particular sheet covers South Dakota.

South Dakota's counties are laid out in the atlas's characteristic outline hand color, with red lines dividing the state into its administrative units and hachures used to render relief across the plains and the breaks along the Missouri River. Cities and towns of the day are marked, and the map is drawn to a scale of 1:2,000,000, with both the Greenwich and Washington prime meridians noted in the margin. Published only a few years after statehood in 1889, the map reflects South Dakota in the earliest stretch of its life as part of the Union.

This print appeals to descendants of South Dakota homesteaders, to someone who grew up in the state and later moved on, and to collectors working through Cram's full 1893 state-by-state series. It also makes a thoughtful housewarming or anniversary gift for a South Dakota transplant. It's sold unframed and available in multiple sizes, so it can be ordered at whatever dimensions suit the room.