Missouri and Arkansas in 1826 - St. Louis, Jefferson City, Little Rock, Arkansas Post

Anthony Finley published this joint map of the State of Missouri and the Territory of Arkansas in 1826 for his New American Atlas, drawn by D. H. Vance and engraved by J. H. Young as part of Finley's effort to compete directly with Henry Tanner's dominant American Atlas. Finley matched Tanner's cartography and engraving quality while offering a smaller, more affordable format, and this sheet includes a statistical table breaking the 1820 census down by white, Black, and non-naturalized foreign populations alongside each region's square mileage, a level of demographic detail unusual for a general atlas map of the period. Missouri had been a state for five years when this map appeared, while Arkansas remained an organized territory, still six years from its own path to statehood.

St. Louis, Missouri's dominant commercial center at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and Jefferson City, chosen as the new state capital only a few years earlier in 1821, anchor the northern half of the map. To the south, Little Rock and the older settlement of Arkansas Post, one of the earliest European outposts in the Mississippi Valley, mark the Arkansas Territory's principal points along the Arkansas River. The Mississippi River forms the eastern boundary of both regions, the essential trade route linking this vast frontier interior to New Orleans and the Gulf.

This 1826 Finley sheet predates every other Arkansas map in this collection by at least a decade, offering the earliest look at the territory before statehood reorganized its boundaries and government. Paired with the 1848 Greenleaf map of Arkansas also offered here, it lets a collector trace the state's path from territorial frontier to settled statehood. This piece suits a serious collector of early American atlases or a family with roots in frontier-era Missouri or Arkansas. It ships unframed and is available in multiple sizes.