Colorado in 1889 - Denver, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Leadville

Rand, McNally & Company published this map of Colorado in 1889 for the eighteenth edition of their Enlarged Business Atlas and Shippers' Guide, a format the firm had been refining since its first appearance in 1885. By this date Colorado had been a state for thirteen years, and the map's printed color, county outlines, and prominently highlighted railroad lines reflect a mature rail network built to move Colorado's booming silver output and growing agricultural trade to national markets. The sheet uses both Washington and Greenwich meridians, a transitional convention common in American commercial atlases of the late 1880s. By this eighteenth edition, Rand McNally's Business Atlas had become one of the most trusted commercial references in the country, regularly updated to keep pace with the West's rapid growth.

Denver anchors the map as Colorado's capital and the hub from which its rail lines radiate outward across the state. Pueblo had become a major steel manufacturing center by this date, its mills fed by nearby coal and iron deposits, while Colorado Springs continued to grow as a resort town beneath Pikes Peak. Leadville, still one of the country's richest silver districts, sits high in the central mountains, connected to the plains by rail lines that made its remote elevation commercially viable. The map's careful relief work conveys the dramatic elevation change between Denver's plains and Leadville's mountain setting.

This 1889 sheet documents Colorado a full decade after the 1879 Rand McNally maps also offered in this collection, and set side by side the three editions trace how quickly the state's rail network and mining towns matured across the 1880s. It is a fitting choice for a Colorado collector assembling a run of Rand McNally editions, or for anyone with family ties to Denver, Pueblo, or the state's historic mining country. This print ships unframed and is available in multiple sizes.