1895 Fee Chromolithograph Bird's-Eye View Map of Yellowstone National Park

This is an 1895 Charles S. Fee chromolithograph bird's-eye view map of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. With Yellowstone Lake in the foreground, the view extends northward as far as Bozeman and Livingston, Montana. Fee includes impressive detail throughout, identifying mountains, plateaus, lakes, geyser basins, and hot springs. Yellowstone landmarks, such as Elephant Back, the Grand Canyon, and Old Faithful (in the Upper Geyser Basin), are labeled. The Lake Hotel, Fountain Hotel, Canon Hotel, and Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel all appear. The Yellowstone River snakes its way through the park and roads (colored white, so they stand out) wind their way from north to south. The Northern Pacific Railway runs across the top of the view and south from Livingston to Cinnabar, just outside Yellowstone.

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is America's first and most famous national park. The park occupies the northwestern corner of Wyoming but also includes parts of Montana and Idaho. Yellowstone is considered to be the world's first national park. Today a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the park is known for its incredible geothermal features, the most famous of which is the Old Faithful Geyser. Yellowstone's iconic geothermal activity is caused by a dormant supervolcano, the largest in North America, lying directly under the park. Yellowstone Lake, one of the largest high-elevation lakes on the continent, occupies the caldera's center. Yellowstone is also renowned for its wildlife, home to wolves, grizzly bear, elk, black bear, and America's largest wild bison herd. As one of the most popular National Parks in the United States, millions visit Yellowstone annually to experience its mud pots, geysers, wildlife, and striking scenery.

Chromolithography

Chromolithography is a color lithographic technique developed in the mid-19th century. The process involved using multiple lithographic stones, one for each color, to yield a rich composite effect. Oftentimes, the process would start with a black basecoat upon which subsequent colors were layered. Some chromolithographs used 30 or more separate lithographic stones to achieve the desired effect. Chromolithograph color could also be effectively blended for even more dramatic results. The process became extremely popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when it emerged as the dominate method of color printing. The vivid color chromolithography produced made it exceptionally effective for advertising and propaganda imagery.

Publication History and Census

This view-map was created by Charles S. Fee and published by the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1895. Six examples are cataloged in OCLC and are part of the institutional collections at Pennsylvania State University, the University of Missouri-St. Louis, the Colorado School of Mines, the Denver Public Library, the Montana Historical Society, and Stanford University. Scarce to the market.