Arizona and New Mexico in 1873 - Santa Fe, Tucson, Prescott, Mesilla

O.W. Gray published this joint map of the Arizona and New Mexico territories in 1873 for his Atlas of the United States, issued by the Philadelphia firm Stedman, Brown & Lyon as part of a first edition tailored in this printing for the West Coast market, complete with business directories for San Francisco and Chicago. Gray built his maps from Colton and earlier Gray sheets, updated and reissued for a Southwest still being reorganized county by county nearly a decade after Arizona's split from New Mexico in 1863. This sheet renders both territories in full color with county boundaries, rivers, and mountain ranges carefully delineated. This particular Philadelphia printing was tailored for distribution on the West Coast, complete with business directories bound in for San Francisco and Chicago.

Santa Fe, New Mexico's ancient capital and by far the oldest seat of government in the American Southwest, anchors the eastern half of the map. Tucson remains Arizona's principal town, tied to trade routes reaching back to the Spanish era, while Prescott, the Arizona territorial capital since 1864, sits in the mining country of the central highlands. Mesilla, along the Rio Grande near the Texas border, appears as a key southern New Mexico settlement. The Colorado and Gila rivers border Arizona's borders, geographic markers that had shaped travel through this country for generations before either territory saw statehood.

This 1873 Gray atlas sheet joins the 1868 Mitchell map of Arizona and New Mexico and the 1927 National Map Company road map, both also in this collection, letting a collector track this pair of future states from Reconstruction-era territories through to their statehood-era highways. This piece is a strong choice for anyone drawn to the cartographic history of the Southwest, or with roots in Santa Fe, Tucson, or Prescott. It ships unframed and is available in a range of sizes.