Washington in 1901 - Seattle, Olympia, Spokane

This map of Washington was published in 1901 by George F. Cram for his Atlas of the World, Ancient and Modern, New Census Edition, a wide-ranging reference work Cram produced with the editorial assistance of naturalist and writer Eugene Murray-Aaron. Washington is laid out across two full pages in soft, distinct color by county, with relief shown by hachures and a level of administrative and infrastructural detail well beyond what Cram's earlier railroad-focused maps had attempted. The atlas itself was built around the newly completed U.S. census, and this sheet reflects that ambition, cataloguing cities, towns, railroads, roads, and rivers across a state that, twelve years after admission to the Union, was firmly into its first period of sustained industrial and agricultural growth.

Seattle appears as the state's dominant port, its harbor already the commercial gateway to Puget Sound and the wider Pacific trade. Olympia, the state capital, sits at the sound's southern end, its role as seat of government distinct from Seattle's role as the state's commercial engine. Spokane, far to the east, anchors the inland Columbia Plateau, a mining and agricultural hub that grew up around its own rail junctions rather than any seaport. The Cascade Range runs between them, dividing wet coastal Washington from the drier country to the east and explaining, on the map itself, why these three cities grew into such different kinds of places.

This map is a fitting gift for anyone with roots in Seattle, Olympia, or Spokane, or for a collector who wants Washington's three major cities named clearly on the same sheet. Washington buyers should note we also carry the state as mapped by Cram in 1909 and by Rand McNally in 1889, the year of statehood: this 1901 edition, drawn from Cram's world atlas rather than a purely regional or business publication, offers a distinct census-era snapshot between the two. It is available unframed in a full range of sizes, from a compact study print to a larger statement piece.