Unattributed “Great National Mail Route between the East and the West"

Unattributed.  “Great National Mail Route between the East and the West.”  From Colton’s Atlas of America. 

New York: J.H. Colton and Company, 1856.  16 x 12 ¾.  Wood engraving printed by Henry B. Ashmead.  Very good condition. 

An advertisement issued in Colton's Atlas of America with a map showing the mail routes from New York to St. Louis, and including a listing of various railroad lines.                                                                        

In 1856, J.H. Colton & Co. issued a Philadelphia commercial edition of its Atlas of America,  on the cover of which was stamped “Colton’s Atlas with Business Cards of the Prominent Houses in Philadelphia.  Commercial Edition.”  This was an atlas in which the Colton firm sold different size advertisements to be placed within the atlas, so that among the fine maps of North and South America that appeared in all their atlases, this version included numerous advertisements for Philadelphia firms.  Most of these were single page advertisements with wood engraved illustrations, though a firm could pay more and get a single page “business card” illustrated in lithography or chromolithography, and some few larger businesses even purchased bigger, double page illustrations of their businesses.  These are amongst the most interesting, decorative and rare trade ads of the period.