Radical Cartography

The first map featured here I originally discovered on the 'radical cartography' website and was immediately drawn to the colors and abstract nature. A set of these would be so perfect in a more contemporary home.

THE ALLUVIAL VALLEY OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI RIVER
Harold Fisk, 1944
Part of an otherwise technocratic report for the Army Corps of Engineers, Fisk’s maps of the historical traces of the Mississippi River are a wonderful surprise—Fifteen maps, stretching from southern Illinois to southern Louisiana.

The Mississippi River map then reminded me of the wonderful selection of maps of the 'Aspen Mining District' we have here in Denver, that are also very abstract in nature and would make a powerful statement grouped as a set.

Josiah Edward Spurr
A selection of maps from the atlas to “The Geology of the Aspen District, Colorado”
United States Geological Survey: Washington, DC, 1898
Chromolithographs: each app.

These maps, issued by the US Geological Survey in 1898, are fascinating documents of Aspen’s first period of prosperity during the mining boom of the 1890s. The first prospectors crossed over the mountains from Leadville in the spring of 1877 and settled in the camp they called Ute City after the Ute Indians, the first residents of the area, who had aptly named it ‘Shining Mountains.’ By 1879, a number of hopeful prospectors had settled in the camp, and in the summer of 1880, the town, which had grown to 300 residents, was renamed Aspen. By 1890, thousands of fortune seekers had arrived in Aspen to stake their claims or work in the mines. During those boom days Aspen boasted 12,000 residents, 6 newspapers, 4 schools, 3 banks, 10 churches, a modern hospital, and an opera house. Many mining camps were temporary settlements (even the ghost town of Ashcroft, 11 miles from Aspen, had a population of 15,000), but Aspen residents strived for permanence. All of Aspen’s significant buildings and Victorian residences, many of which still stand, were built over a short ten year period. Aspen’s mining fortunes fell in 1893 when the silver was de-monetized. Many of the larger mines shut down and, as mining declined, the local economy became more and more dependent on ranching and farming. By the 1930's Aspen's population had shrunk to 700 people, and it would not revive plans were laid to make it into the ski resort and cultural center it is today. These geological maps stand as rare and engaging testaments to the town’s emergence and its early period of thriving, a time when the infrastructure -- which is still recognizable today in Aspen’s plan -- was first being developed, and when the natural beauty of the place was already competing with that which came out of the mines.

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