The “most important” and “most detailed” map of the Utah Territory to appear in the 1880s (Moffat).

Offered here is an extremely rare, large-scale edition of the first official map of the Utah Territory, compiled and published at the behest of the Territorial Assembly. The map is immensely detailed, its most noticeable features being careful hachuring delineating the Territory’s mountainous terrain (probably based on USGS maps) and the grid of townships and sections established by General Land Office surveyors. Superimposed on the landscape are the boundaries of counties, mining districts and reservations; the locations of cities, towns and settlements; and the routes of telegraph lines, railroads (completed and proposed), roads and wagon roads. A table at lower right gives demographic and geographic statistics, and arrayed across the bottom are detailed plans of Salt Lake, Ogden and five other Utah cities (This feature is clearly derived from the 1871 Froiseth’s New Sectional & Mineral Map of Utah.) In all, while incorporating a number of earlier cartographic sources, West’s map more detailed, more comprehensive and certainly more up to date than earlier maps such as the Froiseth, Roeser’s Territory of Utah (1875), and the USGS Map of Utah Territory (1878).

Moffat’s cartobibliography of Utah records three issues of the map at scales of 16 miles:inch, 8 miles:inch (our copy), and a mammoth 6 miles:inch. I have not had opportunity to inspect the 6 miles:inch variant, but the 16 miles:inch and 8 miles:inch issues appear to be identical in content, though the scale and scale bars are different. The poor image quality of the 16 miles:inch variant suggests that it is a photo-reproduction on a reduced scale of one of the larger editions.

Joseph Alva West (1851-1926)

A Salt Lake City native and member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, West’s energy, integrity, intelligence and accomplishments earned him a prominent place in Utah Territory life. He was trained at a young age as a telegraph operator, then learned surveying in the office of Territorial Surveyor General Jesse Fox. By age eighteen he was sufficiently qualified to be appointed a Deputy Territorial Surveyor and soon thereafter was named Surveyor of both Ogden City and Weber County. He soon shifted to the burgeoning railroad sector in which he had a long and successful career in a series of surveying, engineering and managerial roles for lines in Utah, California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon. One paper wrote of him:

“Joseph A. West is said to be one of the best field engineers in the west. We are informed by a prominent railway man yesterday that he accomplished the unusual feat of surveying for the Salt Lake and western over a distance of 350 miles of desert last year.” (Deseret Evening News, Feb. 25, 1881)

In or around 1883 he became clerk of the lower house of the Territorial Assembly, and the following year he was tasked with compiling the official map of Utah. Soon thereafter he was elected to the Assembly, in which he served with distinction for many years, including a stint in Washington representing that body in its dispute with rabidly anti-Mormon Governor Houston Murray. West also served as a senior officer in the Utah militia, published a number of Utah newspapers, and held a high position in the Church of Latter-Day Saints. Some time around the turn of the century he moved to Ogden, Utah, where he died in 1926.

I have been unable to learn more about the particular circumstances under which the Assembly assigned West to compile this state map. As discussed earlier, he clearly relied on earlier maps, no doubt incorporating information from his own surveys for the GLO and railroads, but the full range of sources he drew on is not known. No doubt an examination of the records of the Utah Territory Assembly as well as his autobiography (a manuscript of which is held in microform at Utah State University) would shed more light on the project.

Rarity and references

While reduced-scale issues turn up, this large-scale edition is extremely rare. I find no record of another having appeared on the antiquarian market, and institutional holdings only at the British Library and Yale. The on-line catalog of the Church History Library of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints lists an example of the mammoth 6 miles:inch edition, the only one I have located.

Riley Moore Moffat, Printed Maps of Utah to 1900, pp. 19, #193. Phillips, Maps of America, p. 949 (no dimensions given). Rumsey #5425. OCLC records examples of this 8 miles:inch variant only at the British Library (557805870) and Yale (54637029). Oldmaps.com lists no version of the map having appeared on the antiquarian market, though Ken Sanders offered an example of the 16 miles:inch issue in Catalog Forty Five, item 70 for $1500.

Biographies of West are found in Latter-Day Saints Biographical Encyclopedia (Salt Lake City, 1902); Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah (Salt Lake City, 1913); and Utah Since Statehood: Historical and Biographical, Volume 4 (Chicago & Salt Lake City, 1920). Utah State University holds a microfilm of his manuscript autobiography, which alas I have been unable to examine.