Cape Cod Provincetown Topographic Map, 1889

The story of this map

The curled fist at the end of Cape Cod is one of the most recognisable shapes on any map of America, and the US Geological Survey drew it here in 1889, at 1:62,500, in one of its earliest sheets of the Massachusetts coast. Provincetown sits tucked inside the hook, its harbour sheltered by the long sandy arm of Long Point.

What surprises people about this sheet is how much relief there is. The dune country between the town and the ocean beach is drawn in wandering brown contours, the freshwater ponds among the dunes are dotted in blue, and Race Point marks the outermost corner where the beach turns south. The sea takes up most of the sheet, so the land floats in it like the sandbar it is.

This is the Cape of the fishing fleet and the first summer boarders, twenty years before the Pilgrim Monument went up and long before the highway. The survey lettering and the plain, careful linework give it the feel of a document rather than a decoration, which is exactly why it decorates so well.

We print it as a restored reproduction in our Framed Topographic Maps collection. It belongs in a beach house, a bathroom, or a hallway beside the 1879 Cape Cod Bay chart. Printed to order on archival matte paper and framed in the country of delivery.

Before and after

Left: the archive scan exactly as published. Right: the file that goes to the printer.

Archive scanRestored

Restoration notes

Restoration plan: crop scan margins, balance colour cast and levels while keeping the paper tone, remove library stamps and scanner artefacts if present, gentle sharpening. No repainting of original content.

Every print carries its archive credit on the packing slip. Paper tone and small imperfections of the original are kept on purpose; nothing is redrawn.