Buy an 11-foot Mississippi River Map Used by 19th-century Explorers

Today, we all have maps in our pockets, thanks to our smartphones. But so did mid-nineteenth century explorers, adventurers and Americans exploring the great Mississippi River.

First released in 1866, the Ribbon Map of The Father of Waters—which covers the Mississippi from its delta in southern Louisiana to its source at Lake Itasca in Minnesota—didn’t exactly catch on as a widespread form of navigation. Stretching upwards of 11 feet long and rolled onto paper around a spool, Atlas Obscura notes that it wasn’t exactly practical to use because “the things get all wet,” according to art historian Nenette Luarca-Shoaf. But its creation played a role in shaping post-Civil War culture and impacted how we travel and view maps today.

“There was this idea that because the river went from north to south, it was a great unifier for the country,” Luarca-Shoaf told Atlas Obscura. The map’s creators, Coloney & Fairchild, noted famous battle sites from the recently completed Civil War on the map as well. Luarca-Shoaf writes that the landmarks form “elements of a newly unified river’s historical landscape and reinforce the notion that the Mississippi was national terrain.”

The copy you can purchase today, courtesy of the David Rumsey Map Collection, contains five strips of map that capture the length of the river. Published by Gast, Moeller & Co. in St. Louis, the map is printed against a black and white background and spans 2600 miles. There’s additional material on river towns added to this edition by William Bowen, the President of the Pilot’s Association of St. Louis.