Hysterical Map of Lake Pend O’Reille

Where the Navy Goes to See!

At once both amusing and coarse due to the racially charged imagery and text, this pictorial map reflects the typical stereotypes felt by many of America’s servicemen (and civilians) during WWII. Depicting Lake Pend O’Reille in Northern Idaho, the image is filled with illustrations of naval personnel performing a variety of (mostly recreational) activities such as drinking, gambling, fishing, and relaxing. Pin-up girls are also depicted in quantity, as well as several insensitive cartoons of Native Americans. Humor, puns, and play-on-words are interjected throughout the cleverly designed image.

The lake is shown as isolated, with only a few small towns in the surrounding region, and is the traditional home of the Kalispel Indian people. Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Farragut Naval Training Station was constructed at the southern end of the lake and quickly became one of the largest “cities” in the state of Idaho. Nearly 300,000 sailors received basic training at Farragut, traveling along a specially-built rail line, before it was converted into a POW camp, and then ultimately a state park.

One such enlistee, Stan Gelling, worked as a cartoonist for the Farragut News and designed this map, along with other illustrations and comics of life at the training center. It’s possible Gelling was inspired by the firm of Jolly Lindgren, which issued similarly-styled and popular ‘Hysterical’ maps from Spokane (about 60 miles away).

Published in 1944 by The Ross Hall Studio of Sandpoint, Idaho. Hall was well-known for his outdoor photography, with his studio churning out over 600,000 large-format images during its operational lifespan (mostly portraits of each recruit that went through Farragut). The map is rare, with only two copies known previously on the market. It is unlisted in WorldCat or other online databases as of August 2024.