Louisville Magazine is Louisville's city magazine, covering Louisville people, lifestyles, politics, sports, restaurants, entertainment and homes. Includes a monthly calendar of events.
Issue link: https://loumag.epubxp.com/i/696273
34 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 7.16 THE BIT Of the Map You're looking at a map of Kentucky that recently sold for more than what most families spend on a car. During an auction at Swann Galleries in New York in May, a private collector bought the map for $37,500 (the estimated value before the sale was $10,000 to $15,000). Cartographer Elihu Barker drew the 17½-by-39-inch copperplate-on-paper ink map after Kentucky became a state in 1792. Mathew Carey, who would later become a prominent American map publisher, engraved and published the map in 1974. Titled "A Map of Kentucky From Actual Survey," it is divided into nine counties and has notes such as "very good land" along the Cumberland River and "barren naked land" where Crittenden County and a large Amish community are now. While Lexington appears to be an artery of roadways, the markings near Louisville are mostly creeks. Beargrass Creek is spelled "Baregrass." Caleb Kiffer, a spokesperson for Swann Galleries, says there isn't anything of similar value to compare the map to. One copy is known, and that's at the Library of Congress. "Something as scarce as this — the last one like it was seen on the market in 1922," Kiffer says. — MCA