Ohio in 1893 - Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati

In 1893, Wood Brothers Cash Store of Unadilla, New York, handed its customers something more substantial than the usual promotional trinket: a full atlas produced by George Cram to commemorate that year's World's Fair in Chicago. Ohio's map is one of ninety such maps in the volume, printed to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus's voyage and the industrial confidence the fair put on display.

Measuring roughly 30 by 24 centimeters, the Ohio sheet is printed at a scale of 1:1,700,000, with county lines picked out in the atlas's characteristic red outline coloring and state boundaries drawn more heavily to set Ohio apart from its neighbors. Depth is indicated with isolines, a technique used elsewhere in the atlas for coastal and lake regions, and both Greenwich and Washington are marked as prime meridians along the sheet's edges. Railroads and other transportation routes are threaded across the county grid, reflecting how central Ohio's infrastructure was to the country's economy at the time.

This map fits a household with Ohio roots, a relative who's since settled elsewhere, or a collector building a run of Cram's 1893 state maps one sheet at a time. It's sold unframed and comes in multiple sizes, making it a straightforward pick for a housewarming, a birthday, or an anniversary gift for anyone with a soft spot for Ohio.