1867 S. Augustus Mitchell “County Map of Utah and Nevada”

The Map

An original hand colored lithograph of the County Map of Utah and Nevada, from Mitchell's New General Atlas, Philadelphia, 1867.

The sheet records Utah Territory and Nevada just after Nevada's admission to the Union in 1864. Counties, wagon routes, early mining districts and settlements are drawn in, and the newly formed Nevada counties of Esmeralda, Nye, Humboldt, Lander and Lincoln appear alongside Utah's early territorial divisions, before the modern boundaries were established.

The signature grape vine border frames the sheet, and the hand applied watercolor tinting gives the map both elegance and evidence of its period production.

It is presented in a custom wood frame with archival matting and UV protective glass.

History & Provenance

The map was published by S. Augustus Mitchell Jr., one of the most important American mapmakers of the nineteenth century, and comes from Mitchell's New General Atlas, the flagship publication of the Mitchell mapmaking dynasty.

Samuel Augustus Mitchell Sr., 1792 to 1868, began publishing maps and school geographies in the 1830s, dissatisfied with the poor quality of the educational materials then available. His firm in Philadelphia became one of the most prolific cartographic publishers in the nation.

In 1860 his son S. Augustus Mitchell Jr. took over the company and introduced Mitchell's New General Atlas, an elegantly engraved and hand colored collection of American and world maps that combined scientific accuracy with decorative beauty.

Published annually through the 1860s to the 1880s, the atlas updated borders, counties and railroads to reflect the rapid growth of the United States after the Civil War. It became a staple in homes, schools and libraries, and stood alongside the atlases of Colton and Johnson as one of the three great American cartographic series of the era.

Each map in the atlas was printed by lithographic transfer and then finished with watercolor washes by hand, which is the hallmark of quality that makes these sheets both historically significant and visually rich.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

This is Nevada three years after statehood and Utah Territory before its modern borders, on paper printed in the decade it describes. For anyone living in the Great Basin it is a map of home in its first official shape.

It is an original nineteenth century impression, with hand coloring and the Mitchell grape vine border, made during the American cartographic boom when atlas publishers documented the westward growth of the country.

Framed with archival matting and UV protective glass, it is ready to hang, and it holds its own in a library, a study, an office, or a hallway where a group of framed maps can build. It is a museum quality example of historical Americana, and it suits collectors, libraries and considered interior installations equally.