File:Bird's Eye View of Walla Walla, Washington Territory, 1876 (MAPS 127).jpg

Lithograph.

Printed in center of bottom border: "Bird's Eye View of Walla Walla, Washington Territory, 1876. From the West, Looking East."

Printed to the left of title in bottom border: "Walla Walla was located in 1859: its present population is about 3000; it publishes three Weekly Newspapers, has two Banking Houses, and numerous mercantile establishments."

Printed beneath short description in bottom border on left is a key to churches, schools and other sites of interest in Walla Walla including the Episcopal Church, the Methodist Church, the Catholic School, the Agricultural Park and the Walla Walla and Columbia River Railroad.

Printed above the title in the bottom border: "Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by Everts S. Able, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington."

Printed to the right of the title in the bottom border: "Walla Walla is situated near the center of a fine agricultural district, connecting with the navigation of the Columbia River by the W. W. & C. R. Railway at Wallula, thirty miles distant."

Printed beneath the description in the bottom border on the right is a key to various buildings and factories of Walla Walla including the Walla Walla County Court House, the library, the council chamber, the St. Louis Hotel, the City Brewery and several mills.

Printed in the bottom right border: "A. L. Bancroft & Co., Lithographers, San Francisco, Cal."

Depicts the major streets, residences, buildings, and businesses of Walla Walla with the Blue Mountains in the distance. Major streets labeled include Poplar, Rose, Sumach, Cherry, Pine, Elm, and Oak. Mill Creek is shown running through the center of town.

Eli Sheldon Glover was a traveling mapmaker who made a business drawing "bird-eye" views of cities and selling the prints to publishers. Glover was born near Battle Creek, Michigan in August 1845. At 16, Glover taught school for a short time and then attended a course at the Art League in New York. Using some of his training in painting and lithography, he formed a business making "bird's-eye views" or "pictorial plats of cities" including depictions of homes and buildings. After marrying Sara Belle Latta in the early 1870s, Glover headed West and first settled in Salt Lake City. In 1879, Glover returned to Battle Creek, MI and tried to undertake various business enterprises such as creating a machine to bind books and a machine to brew coffee. In 1889, he headed back to the West, having acquired land near Tacoma, WA in exchange for creating a "bird's-eye view" of that city. After his move to Tacoma, he spent most of his time working on his property (Korn, 6-7; Anderson). His works include various bird's-eye maps of major cities including Seattle, Portland, Tacoma, San Diego and Victoria (Anderson). The first known map of Seattle was created in 1854 by a U.S. navy crew. It was not until 1878, when E.S. Glover drew a "bird's-eye view" of the city that Seattle was mapped again. Glover began his technique by drawing a layout of the city's "topography and streets." He then chose a viewpoint and began sketching major landmarks on the street such as buildings and docks. At the time that Glover drew this map, Seattle contained only about 3000 residents with a heavy lumber industry and an assortment of mudflats in the south. Of note, the business district depicted takes up only 6 blocks (Anderson). Walla Walla was one of Washington Territory's largest communities in the 1860s and 1870s. With a reputation as a "bawdy frontier town" in the 1860s, the town grew due to the output of its agricultural industry (Bennet, 7). In the 1870s, a rapid increase in the wheat industry and the possibility of a transcontinental railroad line ending in Washington Territory led to greater population growth. According to Ficken, in 1870 "four of every five whites east of the Cascades lived in or near Walla Walla" (125). By 1880, wheat was the major crop of the area and Walla Walla's economic status was heavily dependent on crop prices and other farming factors. Despite being Washington Territory's largest city in 1880 with a population of 3,588, the town was only the fourth largest in 1890 with a population of 4,790. The growth of other territorial cities over Walla Walla's own growth had to do with the Northern Pacific Railroad Company's choice to end its line in Tacoma, bypassing Walla Walla (Bennet, 7). Source(s): Anderson, Ross. "Pinpoints, Plots, Plats and Panoramas." The Seattle Times. 18 Sept. 2001. Accessed November 11, 2008. Bennet, Robert A. "Walla Walla: A Town Built to Be a City, 1900-1919." Walla Walla: First Impression, 1982. Ficken, Robert E. "Washington Territory." Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press, 2002. Korn, A. L. "Preface." In "The Diary of Eli Sheldon Glover." Fairfield, WA: Ye Galleon Press, 1987. 5-8.

• Subjects (LCSH): Walla Walla (Wash.)-Aerial views-Maps; Walla Walla (Wash.)-Pictorial works
• Categories: Bird's Eye View; Pacific Northwest