Kentucky in 1833 - Lexington, Frankfort, Louisville, Maysville

Henry Schenck Tanner published this map of Kentucky in Philadelphia, issuing it in parts beginning in 1833 before it was bound into the completed New Universal Atlas in 1836, engraved by W. Brose. Tanner conceived the New Universal Atlas as a cheaper, more widely distributed companion to his premium folio American Atlas of 1823, and this map would go on to a long working life, later acquired and updated first by Carey & Hart and then by S. Augustus Mitchell after Tanner's financial troubles in the 1840s. The map divides Kentucky by county in vibrant original hand color and gives unusually heavy emphasis to the state's emerging transportation network, tracking constructed and proposed canals and railroads alongside a web of roads with land distances marked in quarter-mile increments. It captures Kentucky at a moment of rapid infrastructure growth, as steamboat commerce on the Ohio and Mississippi and a newly opened canal around the Falls of the Ohio were reshaping how the state's produce and people moved to market.

The Bluegrass region fills the map's upper left with a densely detailed road network linking Lexington, Frankfort, Versailles, and Winchester, the cluster of towns at the heart of Kentucky's early plantation economy. In the lower left, the Falls of the Ohio inset details the country around Louisville, showing the newly built Louisville and Portland Canal that let steamboats bypass the falls and transformed the town into the state's commercial gateway. A further inset in the lower right covers the country around Maysville and Clarksburg along the Ohio River, an important crossing point and early settlement hub on the state's northern border. A table of steamboat routes and distances from Louisville to Pittsburgh and New Orleans underscores how thoroughly the map's makers understood Kentucky's economy as a function of river traffic rather than county lines alone.

This detailed 1833 Tanner edition is a strong pick for a Kentucky family with Bluegrass-region roots, a Louisville transplant tied to the old river trade, or a collector assembling the state's early transportation-focused maps. The store also carries three later Kentucky sheets — Bradford's 1835 edition, Meyer's 1845 German edition, and Carey's earlier 1814 map — but this Tanner map is the most transportation-driven of the group, built around canals, railroads, and steamboat routes rather than county geography alone. It is available unframed in a full range of sizes, from a compact study print to a large statement piece.