Released on the 150th anniversary of Colorado's admission to the Union, this limited, numbered and signed collector's edition book is the story of Colorado maps, the people who made them, the methods they employed, and what can be found on them. In The Mapping of Colorado, we watch from a time when the North American Continent was entirely unknown until the State of Colorado was created in 1876, nearly 400 years later. We see Spanish explorers pushing into the Southern portions of the State and Americans roaming across the plains from the East. We observe numerous wars and treaties among nations staking claims to some or all of future Colorado. There are hundreds of surviving maps of Colorado before statehood in 1876, including those of the first explorers, the Mexican Land grants, Native American reservations, the establishment of the Colorado Territory in 1861, the first township surveys, the Great Surveys, early trails, gold rush routes, mail and stagecoach routes, railroads and panoramic (birds-eye) views of the State's cities and towns. Many of these maps are listed in our annotated cartobibliography.
According to Merriam-Webster, a map is "a drawing or picture that shows selected features of a specific area. It can be a drawing of the Earth, the moon, or a section of the brain." Common types of maps include weather, population, economic, political, climate, topographic, diseases, time zones, zip codes, area codes, radar, earthquakes, environmental, medical, aeronautical, atmospheric, and hydrospheric. Black's Law Dictionary has a narrower and more traditional definition: a map is "a representation of the earth's surface, or of some portion of it, showing the relative position of the parts represented, usually on a flat surface." To keep the present undertaking manageable, we attempt to confine our inquiry of Colorado's mapping history to the traditional art and science of mapping the earth's surface. This is the fascinating story of the origins of our State as seen through maps. The new Colorado State Historian, Dr. Susan Schulten, professor of history at the University of Denver, couldn't have said it better: "Old maps serve as unique and fascinating portals into the past, showing us what people knew as well as what they thought they knew."
Before photography, movies and television, it was these printed and hand-colored maps that brought home the thrill of undiscovered lands and explorations. It is hoped that just as the explorers planned their missions studying the maps made by their predecessors, we have added to the readers' desire to explore new places, learn new things, and take on the challenges of the unknown.
The inside front cover of this book contains a collection of U.S. postage stamps commemorating Colorado's benchmark periods. The stamps carry "cancels" denoting locations within the state of historical significance and are signed by both the author and the publisher. This special edition is limited to 200 books.
P. J. Anderson was born and raised in Muscatine, Iowa. He graduated from Colorado College in 1968, earned a Master's Degree in Economics from Colorado State College in 1970, and a Juris Doctor Degree from Washburn University in 1974. He served as Planning Director and County Administrator for El Paso County in the late 1970's. He then opened a law practice in Colorado Springs specializing in land use and local government and served as municipal attorney for three cities in El Paso and Teller Counties. He has volunteered his time to numerous citizen boards, including serving six years on the City of Colorado Springs Trails, Open Space and Parks Program (TOPS) andchairing the County's Road Impact Fee Program Advisory Committee for eight years. He plays competitive tennis, enjoying sectional and national rankings in the senior divisions, and splits the year with his wife Lynette between Arizona and Colorado.
"P. J. Anderson's narrative provides both a history of Colorado as told through maps and an essay about the maps and their makers. Each phase of the state's cartographic past is covered, including the period of total obscurity, the key explorations, the gold rush, and eventual commercial development. Anderson weaves a story that will entertain and inform. The images of maps are chosen with care and reproduced to a high standard. With an extensive cartobibliography briefly describing about 250 maps, the book will serve as a lasting reference." — Wesley Brown, Co-founder, Rocky Mountain Map Society and one of Colorado's foremost map collectors.
"You don't have to be a cartographer to enjoy this thoroughly researched and well presented book. Maps tell us a story. Any serious student of Colorado history will find this a fascinating read." — John Suthers, Former mayor of Colorado Springs, Attorney General of Colorado, U.S. Attorney General.
"A sequence of maps can tell a story of a geographical region. The Mapping of Colorado, from Indigena to Statehood, written by P. J. Anderson and published by Don Kallaus, Rhyolite Press, LLC. tells the fascinating story of the 150-year history of Colorado. This beautiful book offers readers a glimpse back in time, to when Colorado was occupied by the Indigenous People, including the ancient ancestors of the Ute, who still reside in the Four Corners of Southwestern Colorado. Early maps published in this book, many of which were previously unknown, trace the colonization efforts of the Spanish; who named several of Colorado's majestic mountain ranges, and the French; who named many of Colorado's important rivers. Then came the pioneers and the settlers, who followed some of these same maps to reach what is today the State of Colorado. Their blood, sweat, and tears, laid the foundations for the towns and cities where millions of Coloradoans today call home." — John Wesley Anderson, Author of A to Z Colorado's Nearly Forgotten History, 1776-1876.
"Through engaging story-telling, beautiful reproductions, and well-deserved credit to Indigenous geographic knowledge, P. J. Anderson adds significantly to our understanding of Colorado's complex cartographic history." — Craig Haggit, Special Collections and Archives Map and Geospatial Librarian, Denver Public Library.
