Missouri in 1883 - St. Louis, Kansas City, Jefferson City

This Missouri map is drawn from Cram's Unrivaled Family Atlas of the World, copyrighted 1883 by George Franklin Cram and published in Chicago by A.C. Shewey and Co., a first edition remembered as Cram's first "mass production" world atlas. The sixty-five-map volume was built to bring detailed, current state geography to a wide American readership at an accessible price.

Likely printed by lithography, the New Rail Road and County Map of Missouri is set at a scale of about 1:2,280,000, with counties outlined in green and the state border marked distinctly. Its stated focus is the state's rail network, shown as an extensive web crisscrossing Missouri's counties, a reflection of the state's role as a central hub for goods and travelers moving through the country's interior. This map was printed only a year after outlaw Jesse James, whose gang had spent over a decade robbing trains and banks across the same Missouri counties shown here, was shot dead in St. Joseph in 1882, closing out one of the state's more notorious chapters. Both Greenwich and Washington prime meridians are marked on the sheet.

This print suits anyone with Missouri roots, a family that worked the rail lines shown here, a transplant who left the state and wants a piece of it on the wall, or a collector working through Cram's 1883 series. It also makes a fitting housewarming, birthday, or anniversary gift for a Missourian. Every print ships unframed and comes in multiple sizes.