This beautiful poster has been re-mastered from an original 1908 birds-eye view, pictorial map of Denver, Colorado. Pictorial maps depict a given territory with a more artistic rendition of a map, in contrast to a scaled road map, atlas, or topographic map. The map has numbered references to hundreds of the most prominent buildings and features of Denver in 1908.
The vibrant colors and detail of this classic image have been painstakingly brought back to life to preserve a great piece of history.
The high-resolution image is printed on heavy archival photo paper, on a large-format, professional giclée process printer. The poster is shipped in a rigid cardboard tube, and is ready for framing.
The 24”x36” format is an excellent image size that looks great as a stand-alone piece of art, or grouped as a visual statement. These posters require no cutting, trimming, or custom sizing, and a wide variety of these frames are readily available at your local craft or hobby retailer, and online. This poster has a 1” white border.
A great vintage print for your home, shop, or business!
HISTORY OF DENVER AND PICTORIAL MAPS
DENVER, COLORADO
Denver, Colorado is located on the banks of the South Platte River, close to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and was founded in November 1858 as a gold mining town. The gold quickly dried up and the city moved to become a supply hub for new mines in the mountains. Denver grew rapidly, becoming the new county seat of Arapahoe County and eventually the state capital. Investors from Denver built a rail line from Cheyenne to western Kansas which traveled through Denver, bringing new people and supplies. New roads and improvements to rail and air travel in the early twentieth century made Denver a hub for transportation. Until World War II Denver's economy was dependent mainly on the processing and shipping of minerals and ranch products. With war looming, Denver was in a prime location for more federal activity, being situated far from either coast. After the war, oil and gas companies fueled a skyscraper boom in the downtown area. With the combined spending of the energy companies and the federal government, Denver expanded quickly. Denver went from having a small urban core surrounded by rural farms to a booming downtown dotted with skyscrapers and surrounded by growing suburbs.
PICTORIAL MAPS
Pictorial maps (also known as illustrated maps, panoramic maps, perspective maps, bird’s-eye view maps, and geopictorial maps) depict a given territory with a more artistic rather than technical style. It is a type of map in contrast to road map, atlas, or topographic map. The cartography can be a sophisticated 3-D perspective landscape or a simple map graphic enlivened with illustrations of buildings, people and animals. They can feature all sorts of varied topics like historical events, legendary figures or local agricultural products and cover anything from an entire continent to a college campus.
Pictorial maps usually show an area as if viewed from above at an oblique angle. They are not generally drawn to scale in order to show street patterns, individual buildings, and major landscape features in perspective. While regular maps focus on the accurate rendition of distances, pictorial maps enhance landmarks and often incorporate a complex interplay of different scales into one image in order to give the viewer a more familiar sense of recognition. With an emphasis on objects and style, these maps cover an artistic spectrum from childlike caricature to spectacular landscape graphic, with the better ones being attractive, informative and highly accurate. Some require thousands of hours to produce.
