New Mexico, Utah and Nevada in 1855 - Santa Fe, Salt Lake City, Carson City

Joseph Hutchins Colton of New York issued this map of the Territories of New Mexico and Utah in 1855, the first separately issued atlas map to focus specifically on these two newly organized territories. Colton had built his firm into one of the largest American map publishers by the 1850s, known for high-quality steel-plate engravings paired with decorative borders and careful hand coloring, and this plate proved popular enough to be reissued repeatedly through 1863 as the territories' boundaries continued to shift. This particular example represents an early state of the plate, published only a year after New Mexico and Utah Territories had been carved out by Congress amid the broader sectional debates over slavery in the new western lands.

The map traces Fremont's 1844 and 1845 exploration routes, the Spanish Trail linking Los Angeles to Santa Fe, Kearny's military route, and the Cimarron Route, along with the site where Captain Gunnison was ambushed by Ute warriors during a federal survey. At least five counties are shown stretching from California to the Rocky Mountains and beyond, an enormous administrative reach reflecting how loosely organized the territorial government remained. Santa Fe anchors the old Spanish settlements of the Rio Grande valley, Salt Lake City sits at the heart of the Mormon-settled Great Basin, and the unusually detailed treatment of river sinks and geographic features in present-day Nevada, later home to Carson City, reflects Colton's access to fresh survey data from the Pacific railroad reconnaissance.

This map makes a fine gift for a family with roots across the old Utah and New Mexico Territories, for a transplant now settled in the Great Basin or Rio Grande valley, or for a collector of the many scarce states of this landmark Colton plate. It is offered unframed in a range of sizes.