The Wild West: Johnson's Washington and Oregon of 1861

On a trip through the U.S. Pacific northwest, I bought this example of Johnson's Washington and Oregon from 1861.

I wasn't able to get a great image of it because it's framed, but there's a great 'zoomable' photo of the same map here.

I originally bought this map because it was the best one I could find of the region while in the region. I found it quite attractive and interesting, but perhaps a bit plain. The more I study it though, the more I've come to like it.

 The map does have some nice aesthetic features, for example the decorative border, the map spilling out of its border and the textured way in which the mountains are drawn. It also has that somehow strange feature of showing not only the longitude from Greenwich, but also from Washington, D.C.

The map has quite a bit of space with little on it other than lakes, rivers, mountains and the occasional fort. It gives a sense that this is a frontier region. It makes the area on the map feel more vast, more difficult to access and it makes the west coast, which does have more towns indicated, seem like more of a goal to reach. As though it's a slice of civilization across a land-sea of tough wilderness. This is somehow also enhanced by showing a proposed route for a railway line.



More interesting than some of the aesthetic features of the map, I find, are the political elements, and the elements of the map that did not exist in 1861 but that today would not only be present, but would be prominent.

The most obvious is the shape and existence of states and territories. Washington sort of wraps around and embraces Oregon. Idaho is just not there, and instead, Washington borders the Nebraska Territory. Montana is a figment of someone's imagination and is not on this map.

To the south of Oregon, the map does depict California, which borders the Utah Territory and all throughout over areas of otherwise blank map, we see the names of first nations tribes that lived in that territory. Prominent are "Shoshones or Snakes", "Punashly" and "Nez Perces".

Of particular interest to me are the areas that are now Canada, marked only as "British Possessions". This is not meant to be a map of Canada or the British possessions to the north, but there are still some great details there. The blanket label "British Possessions" is alone an interesting historical element. These regions would not even become part of Canada 6 years later during Confederation. They joined the country much later. Another detail I like is that, though there is a Seattle, and a Victoria (now British Columbia) on the map, there is no Vancouver. This is because what is now one of Canada's largest and most prominent cities was not settled until 1862, the year after this map was published.

One more detail about this map that I personally like is the absence of the town of Great Falls, Montana. I've never been to Great Falls, but my late grandmother spent some of her childhood there, and spoke about it fondly. This map shows only that there are falls at the site (just below the "e" in territory of the "Nebraska Territory"), but there's no settlement. The city where my grandmother watched the celebrations for the end of World War One, was not founded until the early 1880's.