The Kansas Pocket Maps of Otis B. Gunn and David T. Mitchell: A Case of Nineteenth-Century Promotional Cartography

Abstract

Engineer Otis B. Gunn and surveyor, land agent, and lawyer David T. Mitchell each created a map of Kansas and its surrounding lands in 1859. By 1861 the two men were working together to publish Gunn & Mitchell's New Map of Kansas. Scott McEathron, of the T. R. Smith Map Collection at the University of Kansas Libraries, explores the publishing history of the 1861 map and its subsequent editions, which were published until 1866. He suggests that the primary market for the map was immigrants seeking land in eastern Kansas and secondarily participants of the Colorado gold rush.