When you look at maps of Washington nowadays, you see a state that is fully developed, with lines of highways and railroads snaking here and there, and cities and town dotting so much of the state. That wasn’t the case in 1857, when Washington was only in its fourth year as a territory and 32 years before statehood. Simply put, there was a lot of wide-open space between the Columbia River and the Canadian border. Curious to know how cartographers viewed Washington in 1857? Look no further than this 1857 map http://1.usa.gov/1AM8edI of the western part of the fledgling territory. While cities like Seattle, Tacoma, Everett and many others had yet to be established, you’ll see plenty of rivers, plus Puget Sound and the Washington coastline. The map is the first candidate in the March edition of our Archives Treasures blog series, which highlights some of the more interesting and flat-out cool items and collections in our State Archives http://www.sos.wa.gov/archives/ .
