4069

c1872 - Poster, Topographical Atlas

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Western Americana Start Price:25.00 USD Estimated At:50.00 - 100.00 USD
c1872 - Poster, Topographical Atlas
Session D is a Mail-Bid Only Auction. Absentee bids will be accepted only. No live bidding will be allowed. All winners will be contacted after the auction. BIDDING ENDS MONDAY JUNE 27 AT 5PM PACIFIC TIME!!!
All the edges have damage. Yellowing. Some foxing. Vignette in the middle is of a man in a small sail boat on the shore of a mountain lake. The Army Corps of Engineers logo is on top with its motto “essayons” (which means “Let us try”).

In 1872, Congress commissioned General Andrew Atkinson Humphreys and George Montague Wheeler of the Army Corps of Engineers to do a survey of the 100th meridian. The project was overseen by the Secretary of War William W. Belknap. The 100th meridian was very important to American’s western advancement and figures greatly in its history. Topography changed after the 100th meridian by becoming more desert-like and a dryer climate. During the 1870s, the plains areas west of the 100th meridian were wetter than normal so the land was advertised as farming land. The idea was “the rain will follow the plow.” Many people bought land in the arid plains because of the motto. In the end, the rain did not follow the plow and the dust bowl occurred in the 1930s. 22” x 19.”