1899 · Maps
Antique Map of New Orleans, The Crescent City, Rand McNally, 1899
$440
€395 · dollar price at today's exchange rate
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Shipping to the United States: $51 standard, $73 express, insured and tracked.
- Date
- 1899
- Maker
- Rand McNally
- Kind
- Maps
- Technique
- Lithograph
- Color
- Printed color
- Size
- 52 × 36 cm (20.5 × 14.2 in)
- Condition
- Good. Good condition for its age. Light age toning, a few small spots in the margins and a rough right edge with small chips. Please review the images for further condition details.
- Period
- The Gilded Age
- Places
- Louisiana
- Reference
- BG-12793-2-55
What the condition grades mean
- Excellent
- Bright and clean, with no faults worth mentioning.
- Very good
- Only light signs of age, such as faint toning.
- Good
- Normal signs of age for a sheet of this period: toning, some foxing, small marks or neat old repairs.
- Fair
- Clear faults such as staining, tears or repairs, priced to match.
Every fault we see is written in the condition note, and the whole sheet is shown uncropped in the photos.
Guaranteed original. This is an original of the period stated, not a later reproduction or print-on-demand copy. If it is ever shown to be otherwise, we refund you in full.
Shipping to the United States. Sent from our gallery in Langweer, the Netherlands, flat between boards or rolled in a tube, and fully insured.
Delivery and import charges.
About this piece
This antique map of New Orleans is the street plan printed on page 276 of Rand McNally's indexed atlas of 1899, following the sharp crescent bend of the Mississippi River through the heart of the city, from which it takes its nickname, with the streets radiating from the curve of the river rather than laid out in a strict rectangular grid. Algiers, across the river on the West Bank, is shown in a contrasting yellow tint with its own distinct grid, and the ferry crossings linking it to the main city, among them the Southern Pacific and Texas and Pacific rail depot ferries, are named along the waterfront.
An inset at upper left maps the area around Lake Pontchartrain to the north, showing the West End and Spanish Fort resort districts and the rail and shell-road connections that linked the lakefront, a popular recreation area for residents by the 1890s, to the city proper. The Fair Grounds racetrack is marked in green, along with several of the city's cemetery squares, a necessity in a city built largely below sea level and subject to flooding.
Scale is given in statute miles and kilometers at lower right, and the plate carries both an 1886 and an 1898 copyright line, evidence of successive revisions to keep the plan current. As a large-scale city plan the sheet carries no railroad color key of its own; its interest lies in the street-by-street record of the city's distinctive river-following layout and its rail and ferry infrastructure at the close of the 1890s.
Rand McNally, which by the 1890s was one of the leading map publishers in the United States, was known for maps revised from issue to issue, as the two copyright dates here show. This antique map of New Orleans is a color lithograph, the outline printed in black with the colors printed over it, and an original 1899 atlas sheet. It is suitable for framing. The color is printed rather than applied by hand.
The sheet is in good condition for its age, with light age toning, a few small spots in the margins and a rough right edge with small chips. Please review the images for further condition details.
This is an original antique map, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.
