Winona, Minn.

Beautiful bird’s eye view of the Mississippi River Valley from 1874.

This idyllic scene captures the bustling city of Winona, Minnesota in the mid-1870s. The first European immigrants had organized the community just over two decades prior, on the site of a Sioux village. Winona (originally called ‘Montezuma’) was named after a legendary Dakota princess first reported in the journals of Zebulon Pike, who visited the island during his search for the source of the Mississippi River.

The image shows the town, population of approximately 7,500, sprawling along the banks of the river, with steep bluffs rising in the background. Dozens of buildings are labeled according to the key at the bottom of the sheet, including railroad depots, local businesses (mills, breweries, etc.), churches, schools, hotels, and more. Paddlewheel steamers, barges, and canoes are plying the waters of the Mississippi, while two trains approach the city from a large bridge. Pedestrian and wagon traffic hoping to cross the river likely required the use of a ferry, visible in the foreground.

The map was published in Chicago by George H. Ellsbury & Vernon Green, with color lithography performed by Charles Shober & Co. of the Chicago Lith. Co. Issued as part of the deluxe edition of A.T. Andreas’s 1875 Atlas of Minnesota. Blank on verso.