Books & Manuscripts, including Americana

Lithographed cadastral map with contemporary hand-coloring, mounted on paper as issued(?), printed paper label on verso, 533 x 622 mm. (Scattered wrinkles and soiling, old folds, lower corner with tears, repaired on verso.) Inset map of Hyde Park, vignettes of Stony Island Chateau, South Chicago Hotel, and a steamship. Provenance: A.T. Galt (1832-1922), 550 Dearborn, from H.L. Dahl, Tailor, 120 Dearborn St. (printed paper label); notations and markings on map delineating property. Galt was a pioneer Chicago lawyer whose office would have been destroyed in the Great Fire.

A RARE CHICAGO MAP PUBLISHED THE SAME YEAR AS THE GREAT FIRE. Hyde Park Township, incorporated in 1861, developed as one of Chicago’s earliest suburban districts, attracting prominent residents to its lakefront setting, while neighboring South Chicago grew alongside it as an industrial and transportation hub, shaped by rail and shipping interests. In the decades leading up to the Great Fire, both areas retained a semi-rural character, with large private estates set among newly plotted subdivisions.
Shown here is “Wild Wood,” the country seat of Colonel James H. Bowen (c. 1814–1886), a Chicago real estate developer whose holdings are identified on this 1871 map. The name reflects the still wooded landscape of the district at the time, before its full incorporation into the expanding city. The Union Stock Yards are also mentioned. EXCEEDINGLY RARE: According to online records, no copies have sold at auction.