This piece comes from Peter Michel, head of exhibits for the UNLV Libraries and former director of its special collections. An historian, he has helped create a series of digital collections highlighting the wealth of materials in the the Libraries and exploring the historical themes they document, including maps.

Early maps were works of imagination or imperial ambition as nations sought to publish their claims to vast territories, even continents or hemispheres, by royal or papal edict, the planting of a flag, and the drawing of a map. As astronomical knowledge and instruments became more sophisticated, mapping became more accurate and scientific. Maps reflect geography, topography, geology, and how people have changed the landscape. They are also an historical record of settlement, political jurisdictions, and the variety of networks that define and connect people into one place called Nevada.

The historic map collection housed in the UNLV Libraries dates from the 17th century to the present. They document the cartographic history and context of this region, telescoping in scale from the Western Hemisphere to the streets of Las Vegas.

You can explore our state's evolution through the digital collection Southern Nevada and Las Vegas: History in Maps.

1. Map of Public Surveys in the Nevada Territory to Accompany the Report of the Surveyor General, 1862.

This 1862 map shows how little of the land in Nevada had been surveyed because the population of Nevada was still isolated in the Comstock region around Carson and Virginia Cities and north along the Truckee River. Clark County was not surveyed until the 1880s.

Originally proposed by Thomas Jefferson to create a nation of "yeoman farmers," the Public Land Survey System began shortly after the American Revolutionary War, when the federal government became responsible for large areas of land West of the original 13 states. The government wished both to distribute land to Revolutionary War soldiers in reward for their services, as well as to sell land as a way of raising money for the nation. Before this could happen, the land needed to be surveyed. In Nevada, the surveys were conducted under the supervision of the federally appointed state Surveyor General.

2. County Map of Utah and Nevada, 1862

Drawn and engraved by W.H. Gamble, published by S. Augustus Mitchell of Philadelphia, this is a sheet from a popular atlas published in 1865 but showing the 1862 boundaries. It was not uncommon for commercial atlases to reflect out-of-date or incorrect boundaries in the new and developing Western territories.

The Nevada Territory was established and separated from the Utah Territory in 1861 with its original western boundary 116? longitude and its southern boundary with the Arizona territory 37? latitude. In 1862 the boundary was moved west one degree. In 1866, two years after Nevada was granted statehood, another degree west was added from Utah, at its present place at 114?. The southern boundary was also fixed in 1866 at its present point at 35? latitude to include modern Clark County, although Arizona did not formally relinquish it until 1871. The Nevada Constitution was not amended to include Clark County within the state's boundaries until 1982.

3. Map of the State of Nevada to Accompany the Annual Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, 1866

Although the southern tip of modern Nevada was not officially added to Nevada until 1867 this 1866 map shows Nevada with its modern boundaries. It also shows the major mineral deposits of gold, silver and copper and established mining districts in the state, which were defining settlement patterns and population centers.

4. Automobile Road Map of the State of Nevada, ca. 1930

This map was developed by the Automobile Club of Southern California. America had taken to the road as the automobile and state highways had replaced trains and railroads. The new roads sometimes were built along abandoned right of ways, the tracks torn up, and the rails sold as scrap. A big attraction for road-touring Americans would be the new wonder of Hoover Dam.

5. General Highway Base Map State of Nevada, 1975

The largest Federal Works Project since Hoover Dam was the Interstate Highway system, established by the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Nevada is crossed by two Interstates, I-80 in the north through Reno, and I-15 through Las Vegas. Both these Interstates generally follow the routes of the original Transcontinental railroads, connecting Nevada to California, north and south, and to points east. Nevada State Highway Department Planning Survey Division in Cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration