J . H . Colton and Rand McNally . Although the maps were still drawn by hand , they already looked nearly as mechanical as today ’ s maps . What they lacked in charm , they made up for in accuracy .
Maps of individual cities , however , still had some artistic flair . An 1892 “ plat ” map of Everett , Washington contains all the usual information about city lots and street names , along with conventional maps of Snohomish County and Washington State . But it also has quaint illustrations of the city ’ s major industries , including smoking factories , which in those days represented reassuring prosperity . Most appealing of all is the extravagant title in the upper right , drawn with four typefaces and typical Victorian bric-a-brac — no elegant simplicity here .
Nor is there any in the perspective map of Spokane Falls , as it was then known , published by Gies and Co . of Buffalo , New York , in 1892 . It was part of a souvenir brochure for the Northwestern Industrial Exposition of Spokane Falls , made easily detachable for framing . Like the map of Everett , it was made by the lithography process , in which the artist draws directly on a flat slab of limestone with a grease pencil . The printer coats the stone with an ink-resistant chemical and rolls ink over it . The ink sticks to the pencil lines and washes off the rest of the plate . In the 1890s , colors were hand-painted , usually by women working on an assembly line .
The sign in the corner boasts that we are beholding “ Spokane Falls and her natural resources , the variety and extent of which are not equaled by any city in the world .” Pointing fingers and scrolls along the perimeter show us the way to mining districts , quarries , ranches , farms , oil and natural gas , and even tobacco plantations , which must have been far outside the frigid Spokane area . Like the map of Everett , this one shows plumes of prosperous factory smoke . The map is oriented toward the east , extending from Browne ’ s Addition at the bottom border to the East Central and Chief Garry neighborhoods at the top .
Oregon Indian Tribes , 1852 Puget Sound , 1798 Everett , 1892
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