N/A: N/A, 1889. 16 x 35. This railroad map and promotional is most interesting. The map exhibits a swath of the north and northwest from Michigan west to the Pacific and south to include most of Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and northern California. It shows every whistle stop on the line and much more detail in the surrounding states and territories. Verso is a curious text, the speech of one J. Proctor Knott (a real person) Representative from Kentucky in opposition to a railroad land grant that would open up Duluth and the northwest. It is highly sarcastic and, according to the parenthetical notes, produced great mirth among the auditors. It is humor of the sort: "Now, I have always been under the impression, as I presume other gentlemen have, that in the region around Lake Superior it was old enough for at least nine months in a year to freeze the smoke-stack off a locomotive. (Great laughter.) But I see it represented on this map that Duluth is situated exactly half way between the latitudes of Paris and Venice, so that gentlemen who have inhaled the exhilarating airs of the one or basked in the golden sunlight of the other, may see at a glance that Duluth must be a place of untold delights, (laughter) a terrestrial paradise fanned by the balmy zephyrs of an eternal spring, clothed with a gorgeous sheen of ever-blooming flowers and vocal with the silver melody of nature's choicest songsters (laughter)" And so on for more than 90 column inches of text, illustrated with cartoons. The editors have interspersed the speech with statistics and other data on the production and conditions in the region so as to make Rep. Knott out to be something of an ass - not that difficult a chore, but a curious tactic. The paper is quite brittle and there are several repairs to the folds but no loss. Item #26275

Price: $275.00