Sketch Map of Nevada and Southeastern Portion of California.

Description

Before George S. Clason wrote The Richest Man in Babylon,the 1926 personal finance classic still in print a century later, he was a map publisher in Denver, Colorado, and the maps he made were of real places where real fortunes were being won and lost at speed. The Clason Map Company’s 1906 sketch map of Nevada is a document of one of those moments. Tonopah had been a silver camp since 1900. Goldfield had been pouring out gold since 1902. Rhyolite and the Bullfrog District were in full eruption. Nevada, long written off as a played-out wasteland, was the most exciting mining territory in the American West, and anyone heading there needed exactly this kind of map.

The Map in Detail

The map covers all of Nevada and the southeastern portion of California within a 14-row by 11-column grid referenced against a comprehensive “List of Cities and Towns” printed in two columns down the left margin, keying every settlement, post office, telegraph station, railroad stop, to its grid coordinates. The key distinguishes between classes of place: post offices, money-order offices, telegraph stations, and Western Union telegraph offices each have their own symbol.

Nevada’s counties are labeled across the interior: Humboldt and Elko in the north, Lander and Eureka in the center, Churchill and Storey around the Comstock, Lyon and Douglas in the west, White Pine to the east, and Nye, Esmeralda, and Lincoln sprawling across the south. The railroad lines, including the Central Pacific along the northern corridor, the Southern Pacific routes, and the new short lines pushing south toward the mining districts, are traced in bold. Tonopah, Goldfield, and Rhyolite all appear, the latter two having sprung from nothing within the previous four years.

The California portion shows Fresno, Madera, Tuolumne, Mono, and Inyo counties, with Yosemite National Park visible at the California-Nevada border. The map thus covers the full approaches to the new Nevada boomfields from the California side as well, reflecting the reality that most traffic to the mines came through California.

Historical Context

Nevada had been in long decline since the Comstock Lode peaked in the 1870s. By 1900, the state’s population had fallen to under 50,000 and statehood itself had seemed an embarrassment. The Tonopah silver discovery in 1900 and the Goldfield gold strike in 1902 reversed everything. Within five years, Goldfield was Nevada’s largest city, with 20,000 people, a stock exchange, fine hotels, and a heavyweight championship boxing match. Rhyolite, in the Bullfrog District, grew from a desert town to 10,000 people between 1904 and 1908. The railroads scrambled to extend their lines south; the maps scrambled to keep up.

Publication History

Copyrighted 1906 by George S. Clason, Denver, Colorado. Published by the Clason Map Company, Denver.