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Pub Year	Map Maker	Pub Place	Map Title	Map Price (USD)	Picture
1860	Johnson & Browning	New York	New Mexico and Utah	$475	Picture

An engraved, hand colored and outlined map

Sized: approximately 33cm x 41cm (13 inches x 16 inches)

Map Type: Atlas

In excellent condition with no spotting and very minor aging color in margin areas.

Joseph Colton sold his atlas copyrights in 1860 to Johnson & Browning, and they immediately published the atlas containing this map, Johnson's New Illustrated Family Atlas, With Descriptions, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical. The strong decorative border used by Colton was changed to a new style in later editions of this atlas.

This historical and interesting map of the central western states of today's Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and portions of Montana displayed in their territorial forms. This map is full of historical references, a few of which are detailed here.

"Pikes Stockade" is noted in Taos territory, near the 38th parallel. Lt. Zebulon Pike was ordered to explore the southern parts of the Louisiana Purchase by President Thomas Jefferson. In January 1807, after exploring the Pikes Peak area and mistakenly traveling east along the Conejos River in what is today southern Colorado, many in Pikes expedition were suffering exposure and gangrene from frostbite. They decided to camp and build a stockade fort for protection against the elements. However, the stockade was constructed in Spanish territory, and only one month after its completion, a company of Spanish Dragoons surrounded the structure and offered to escort Pike and his men to Santa Fe. Pike recognized the offer as arrest and complied with the soldiers' request, beginning a long trek down the El Camino Real to Chihuahua, Mexico where he and his men were held as prisoners. The were eventually released and returned to St. Louis in June, 1809 with an important journal of the journey and maps they had made along the way.

"Fremont's route" 1842, 1843, 1844, and 1845 are noted in several places. Lieutenant John Charles Fremont, of the United Stated Army Corps of Topographical Engineers was commissioned by the government to lead a major expedition to explore and report upon the country from the frontiers of Missouri to South Pass in the Rocky Mountains on Kansas and Great Platte rivers. This expedition was the beginning of an effort to most practical and economical route for a rail way passage to the Pacific ocean. Fremont left from St. Louis with 22 men in May, 1842 trekking into the Wind River chain of the Rocky Mountains accompanied by famous Kit Carson as his scout. Using trails previously blazed by mountain men, Fremont explored the South Platte River to Fort St. Vrain, north to Fort Laramie on the North Platte River. His resulting Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, published in 1843, made Fremont a public figure, known as the "Great Pathfinder". Fremont's 1842 route from the Mississippi River to South Pass, Wyoming, eventually became the gateway through the Rockies for Westbound settlers.In a second expedition in 1843, Fremont again traveled with Kit Carson and 39 men west of the South Pass and into the Great Basin region, eventually following the Snake River into the Columbia River valley as far as its mouth at the Pacific Ocean at Fort Vancouver, Washington.

During Fremont's third expedition in 1845, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the Mounted Rifles and led a battalion of volunteers in the early U.S.-Mexican War. He resigned from the army in 1848, before being court-martialed and dismissed from the Army for mutiny, insubordination and conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline, growing out of his role in California's Bear Flag Revolt.

Fremont conducted a privately funded fourth expedition, still seeking the best rail route to the Pacific. He attempted to cross the Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter to demonstrate that neither the terrain nor the weather would be an obstacle to a transcontinental railroad route near the 38th parallel. He failed in the San Juan Mountains of southern Colorado during the winter of 1849 when he and his men were caught in a snowstorm, and ten of his men died from starvation and exposure

In 1853, Congress authorized survey expeditions to study possible railroad routes from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast, but Fremont was ignored in favor of Captain John Gunnison.

"Kearny's Route 1847", "Col. Cooks Waggon Route" and the town of Mesilla. In 1846, General Stephen W. Kearny was ordered to gather information on the plains country, protect the emigrants using the Oregon Trail as far as the South Pass, and to offer protection from Indians for the trading caravans traveling from Santa Fe through Bent's Fort to Saint Louis. From the rooftop of a home on the Los Vegas Plaza, Kearney declared New Mexico, which then comprised most of the Southwest and California, an American territory, and the Mexican War ensued.

In 1847, Kearny trekked south from Santa Fe to the Gila Trail, turning west toward California. Lieutenant Colonel Cook, in command of General Kearny's wagon train, chose the route crossing Jornada del Muerto further south, pioneering what became the first wagon road to the West Coast. This is the general route followed today by U.S. Highways 70-80-84.

In 1852 James Gadsden, the ambassador to Mexico, agreed to pay Santa Anna $10,000,000 for a strip of territory south of the Gila River and lying in what is now southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona. At the end of the U.S.-Mexican War, many Americans were not especially proud of the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty and considered the price of the Gadsden Purchase as "conscience money." This tract of nearly 30,000,000 acres cost the U.S. about thirty-three cents an acre. The Gadsden Purchase treaty, also known as the "La Mesilla Treaty", was signed in the southern town of Mesilla, near today's Las Cruces, with a flag-raising ceremony. In 1854, the capital of the Territory of Arizona and New Mexico was established there.

"Capt. Stansbury Route" and "Capt. Gunnison's Route" "Capt. Gunnison killed by Ind's." Lieutenant John W. Gunnison of the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers was assigned his first survey as a member of the Captain Stansbury expedition of 1849 to the Utah Territory. In 1853, Gunnison was promoted to Captain and was selected by Jefferson Davis to lead the search for a pacific railroad route between the 38th and 39th parallels, or the Cochetopa Pass route, along the current Kansas-Nebraska border. Accompanied by guide Antoine Leroux from Taos, New Mexico, his journey took him through Kansas and eastern Colorado, over the Rocky Mountains, and into the Tomichi River (Gunnison River) Valley. He reached Utah, but was ambushed by Indians and killed in October, 1853. Gunnison's route was never used for a transcontinental railroad, but the information he gathered was helpful in the future development of the west.

References: American Maps and Mapmakers, page 325, Ristow, George, Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1985; Mapping the Trans-Mississippi West, # 832, Wheat, Carl, Maurizio Martino Publisher, Storrs-Mansfield, CT, 1957