Colorado: Its Resources, Parks and Prospects as a New Field for Emigration; with an Account of the Trenchara and Costilla Estates, in San Luis Park

London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston, 1869. Five mounted photographs (including frontispiece) and three folding maps.[2],217pp. 4to. Publisher's green cloth, lettered in gilt, a bit warped and worn. Some fading to the images as usual, dampstaining largely in the upper margins of the mounts, a few folds on maps beginning to split, small tear to gutter of each, reinforced with tape. Bookplate and ownership ink stamp on front pastedown, pencil annotations on rear endpaper. Five mounted photographs (including frontispiece) and three folding maps.[2],217pp. 4to. First trade edition of this elaborate promotional encouraging immigration to Colorado, boasting (truncated) its qualities favoring cattle raising, agriculture, and, of course, mining for silver and gold. Blackmore’s book was published in various forms, and not all copies were issued with all photographs and maps. While there is also an exceedingly rare, privately-printed edition with separately paginated parts and additional mounted photographs, it is very rare to find this edition with the full complement of three maps and five images, as here.

William Blackmore was an Englishman with a visionary scheme for developing southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. He was also a notable ethnologist and a pioneering exponent of the use of photographs to record indigenous Americans, and as such formed a great collection related materials, now at the British Museum. He was closely involved with the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, hoping that the line would bring value to his huge land holdings. Unfortunately, the plan was not realized soon enough for Blackmore; after a series of unlucky breaks, health issues, and investing mistakes, he went bankrupt and committed suicide in 1878.

This work gives an excellent description of the mining, pastoral, and agricultural resources of the state, with emphasis on its untapped potential. There is an additional section touting “Miscellaneous” other virtues of Colorado which include, among others, the “Salubrity of Climate” and Governor Gilpin himself who, “but for his resignation [from the military], on moving out West, would have been the superior officer of Grant and Sherman.”

Of particular interest are the five mounted photographs, some or all of which are lacking from most copies. They are: 1) Portrait of William Gilpin, frontispiece; 2) Platte Cañon to the South of Denver; 3) Corner of F and Blake Streets, Denver; 4) Episcopal Seminary, Denver; and 5) Corner of F and Holliday Streets, Denver.

The three excellent maps, not recorded in Wheat or Phillips, illustrate the United States showing the railroad lines to the Pacific; Colorado, "embracing the central Gold Region," drawn by Frederick J. Ebert with railroad routes colored red and wagon routes in blue; and the Trenchara and Costilla Estates, with boundaries colored in green and red. In Nothing is Long Ago: A Documentary History Of Colorado 1776-1975, Thomas Hornsby Ferril describes the land shown by the last map: "This map shows the largest of those grants in Colorado that were later confirmed by the United States, the Sangre de Christo grant, comprising 1,000,000 acres in the San Luis Valley. The grant was made to Stephen Luis Lee and his 12-year-old nephew Narciso Beaubien in 1843. Narciso's father, Carlos Beaubien, was already half owner of an adjoining 1,700,000 acres, later called the Maxwell Grant. Carlos came into possession of the Sangre de Christo grant after his son and brother-in-law were killed in the Taos revolt of 1847."

Scarce with all five photographs present, usually found with just the frontispiece portrait. Indeed this is the first example with all five photographs that we have encountered. Howes C607; Graff 318; Wynar 2025; Henkle Collection 28; Adams Herd 272; Wilcox, p.5. Margolis & Sandweiss, To Delight the Eye 2; Reese, Best of the West 176 (Inventory #: 371581)