Antique U.S. Pacific Railroad Surveys Lake Jessie Lithograph Print — FITF-0006 — Field Find

+ THE FIND

A color lithograph of Lake Jessie, North Dakota, associated with the U.S. Pacific Railroad Surveys of the 1850s — a landscape captured during the age of American exploration, when the West was being systematically documented for audiences who had never seen it. Found in excellent condition.

+ WHAT WE KNOW

• Subject: Lake Jessie, North Dakota
• Format: Color lithograph
• Association: U.S. Pacific Railroad Surveys — 1850s American West documentation
• Catalog ID: FITF-0006
• Provenance: Exact publication details, printing state, and provenance not independently verified — presented as historical lithograph in the Pacific Railroad Survey tradition
• Condition: Excellent — please examine photographs for paper condition, color, margins, and surface wear
• Weight: [WEIGHT]
• Dimensions: [DIMENSIONS]

+ THE STORY

During the 1850s, the United States government sponsored surveys to investigate possible routes for a transcontinental railroad. Survey expeditions documented geography, geology, natural resources, and landscapes across large portions of the American West — and they brought artists with them. The illustrated plates produced from these surveys brought distant landscapes to readers who might never see them in person. This print is one of those images: Lake Jessie on the northern plains, recorded while the American West was still being measured and described on a scale that would reshape the country. It is more than a picture of a lake. It is a glimpse of how a place was seen and remembered more than a century ago.

+ WHY WE CHOSE IT

Because a historical lithograph associated with the Pacific Railroad Surveys preserves more than an image — it preserves a way of seeing. Because the frontier as it appeared to the people sent to measure it is a specific and irreplaceable record. Because sometimes a map does not merely tell you where a place is — sometimes it proves that someone once stopped long enough to look.

+ ABOUT THIS PIECE

One available. FITF-0006. The exact piece photographed is the piece you will receive. Please examine the photographs carefully for paper condition, color, margins, and surface wear. A serious piece for collectors of American history, Western exploration, railroad history, cartography, or antique prints.