Rare Old Map of Gambier, Ohio by USGS, 1961: Kenyon College & Clinton
Restored in our London workshop from the original 1962 map and printed to museum-grade archival standards. Full description
The Collector’s Offer
Choose two eligible works and receive 20% off both. Choose three and the lowest-priced one is complimentary, a maximum saving of 33%.
Mix and match eligible standard maps and fine-art prints. No code is required; the offer is applied automatically at checkout.
Standard made-to-order configurations are included. Bespoke sizes, personalised designs and commissioned work are excluded.
Need delivery to different addresses? Contact us before ordering.The Collector’s Offer
Choose two eligible works and receive 20% off both. Choose three and the lowest-priced one is complimentary, a maximum saving of 33%.
Mix and match eligible standard maps and fine-art prints. No code is required; the offer is applied automatically at checkout.
Standard made-to-order configurations are included. Bespoke sizes, personalised designs and commissioned work are excluded.
Need delivery to different addresses? Contact us before ordering.
Restored in London • Printed and framed in Canada
Restored from the original 1962 map and printed to museum-grade archival standards. Full description
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Gift message & custom finish
If you want to add a gift message, or a finish (jigsaw, aluminium board, etc.) that is not available here, please request it in the "order note" when you check out.
Every order is custom made, so if you need the size adjusted slightly, or printed on an unusual material, just let us know. We've done thousands of custom orders over the years, so there's (almost) nothing we can't manage.
You can also contact us before you order, if you prefer!
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Titled “Mt Vernon,” this U.S. Geological Survey topographical map was dated 1961 and published in 1962, capturing a finely measured portrait of...
Continue readingTitled “Mt Vernon,” this U.S. Geological Survey topographical map was dated 1961 and published in 1962, capturing a finely measured portrait of central Ohio at a moment when rural landscapes, college towns, and expanding road networks were being documented with new precision. Drawn at the detailed 1:24,000 scale, the map focuses on Gambier and its surrounding countryside, with Kenyon College serving as one of its most notable landmarks. The sheet belongs to the USGS tradition of practical yet elegant scientific cartography: contour lines, land-use coloring, road classifications, streams, and settlement patterns combine to create an image that is at once technical, historical, and richly evocative of place.
Gambier appears here not merely as a point on the map, but as a distinctive academic village shaped by the presence of Kenyon College, one of Ohio’s most celebrated liberal arts institutions. The ordered campus and village landscape sit amid a broader rural setting of farms, wooded slopes, and local roads, reflecting the interplay between education, settlement, and agriculture in Knox County. The map’s careful attention to roads and trails reveals how Gambier connected to nearby communities and the wider regional economy. In the early 1960s, such mapping was essential for planning, engineering, travel, land management, and civic development, making this sheet a valuable snapshot of a landscape in transition.
The topographic character of the map is especially compelling, with contour lines tracing the rises, hollows, ridges, and valleys that define the terrain around Gambier and the neighboring communities. Rather than presenting Ohio as a flat agricultural expanse, the map reveals a textured countryside, where hills and drainage patterns shape roads, fields, and settlement. Streams and river corridors near Clinton are integrated into the terrain with quiet precision, showing how watercourses influenced local geography and movement. Green-tinted areas mark woodland and parkland, contrasting with open agricultural land and settled areas, and giving the map a layered visual rhythm that reflects both natural and cultivated landscapes.
Clinton is shown in notable detail, with residential zones indicated by red urban grid patterns that distinguish it from the more dispersed rural surroundings. Nearby places including Monroe and Morris help anchor the map within a network of small Ohio communities, each connected by roads, trails, farms, and waterways. This pattern of settlement evokes a period when rural accessibility was increasing, yet before later decades of suburban expansion and altered land use transformed many American landscapes. The map preserves the structure of an earlier regional geography: compact communities, working farmland, wooded tracts, and transportation routes threading between them in a practical, locally rooted arrangement.
As a USGS production, “Mt Vernon” reflects the agency’s longstanding role in surveying and interpreting the American landscape through rigorous, standardized cartography. Founded to provide reliable geographic and geological information, the U.S. Geological Survey became indispensable to scientists, planners, engineers, educators, and government agencies alike. This map embodies that mission in its meticulous depiction of elevation, hydrology, vegetation, settlement, and infrastructure. Yet beyond its scientific value, it offers a remarkably intimate historical view of Gambier and its environs in 1961: a college village, rural Ohio communities, working lands, wooded pockets, and developing roads preserved in a beautifully disciplined cartographic language.
Cities, towns and places on this map
- Gambier, Ohio
- Kenyon College
- Clinton, Ohio
- Monroe, Ohio
- Morris, Ohio
- Surrounding rural areas and farmland
- Roads and trails connecting these towns
- Rivers in the vicinity, including near Clinton
- Parks and forested areas
- Residential zones shown by red urban grid patterns, especially in Clinton
Historical context & cartographic details
- Titled “Mt Vernon”
- Produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
- Dated 1961 and published in 1962
- Historical 1:24,000 topographical map of Gambier, Ohio, and the surrounding area
- Reflects the USGS tradition of comprehensive mapping for land use, scientific research, and geographic documentation
- Shows detailed contour lines indicating elevation changes, hills, valleys, and terrain shape
- Uses color to distinguish land-use features, including agricultural and forested areas
- Captures a period of increased accessibility and development in rural Ohio
- Provides a historical snapshot of the landscape before later changes in land use and urban development
Looking for a particular place? Review the detailed images to confirm that the town, landmark or feature you have in mind appears on the map. If you are unsure, ask our workshop to check before you order.
Detailed maps are especially rewarding at larger sizes, where names, boundaries and decorative features have more room to be appreciated. Use the close-up preview and size guide to choose the right scale for your wall.
This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.
The model in the listing images is holding the 16x20in (40x50cm) version of this map.
Where personalisation is available, you can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. See personalised map examples.
Every piece is printed to museum-grade archival standards using fade-resistant pigment inks on acid-free matte paper. Choose an unframed map print, framed map or canvas using the finish options above. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.
With its rich detail and strong sense of place, this map makes a considered gift for a new home, anniversary, retirement or anyone with a personal connection to the area shown. Still deciding? Explore our collection of rare old and vintage maps to discover another place, period or style.
This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.
For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.
Titled “Mt Vernon,” this U.S. Geological Survey topographical map was dated 1961 and published in 1962, capturing a finely measured portrait of central Ohio at a moment when rural landscapes, college towns, and expanding road networks were being documented with new precision. Drawn at the detailed 1:24,000 scale, the map focuses on Gambier and its surrounding countryside, with Kenyon College serving as one of its most notable landmarks. The sheet belongs to the USGS tradition of practical yet elegant scientific cartography: contour lines, land-use coloring, road classifications, streams, and settlement patterns combine to create an image that is at once technical, historical, and richly evocative of place.
Gambier appears here not merely as a point on the map, but as a distinctive academic village shaped by the presence of Kenyon College, one of Ohio’s most celebrated liberal arts institutions. The ordered campus and village landscape sit amid a broader rural setting of farms, wooded slopes, and local roads, reflecting the interplay between education, settlement, and agriculture in Knox County. The map’s careful attention to roads and trails reveals how Gambier connected to nearby communities and the wider regional economy. In the early 1960s, such mapping was essential for planning, engineering, travel, land management, and civic development, making this sheet a valuable snapshot of a landscape in transition.
The topographic character of the map is especially compelling, with contour lines tracing the rises, hollows, ridges, and valleys that define the terrain around Gambier and the neighboring communities. Rather than presenting Ohio as a flat agricultural expanse, the map reveals a textured countryside, where hills and drainage patterns shape roads, fields, and settlement. Streams and river corridors near Clinton are integrated into the terrain with quiet precision, showing how watercourses influenced local geography and movement. Green-tinted areas mark woodland and parkland, contrasting with open agricultural land and settled areas, and giving the map a layered visual rhythm that reflects both natural and cultivated landscapes.
Clinton is shown in notable detail, with residential zones indicated by red urban grid patterns that distinguish it from the more dispersed rural surroundings. Nearby places including Monroe and Morris help anchor the map within a network of small Ohio communities, each connected by roads, trails, farms, and waterways. This pattern of settlement evokes a period when rural accessibility was increasing, yet before later decades of suburban expansion and altered land use transformed many American landscapes. The map preserves the structure of an earlier regional geography: compact communities, working farmland, wooded tracts, and transportation routes threading between them in a practical, locally rooted arrangement.
As a USGS production, “Mt Vernon” reflects the agency’s longstanding role in surveying and interpreting the American landscape through rigorous, standardized cartography. Founded to provide reliable geographic and geological information, the U.S. Geological Survey became indispensable to scientists, planners, engineers, educators, and government agencies alike. This map embodies that mission in its meticulous depiction of elevation, hydrology, vegetation, settlement, and infrastructure. Yet beyond its scientific value, it offers a remarkably intimate historical view of Gambier and its environs in 1961: a college village, rural Ohio communities, working lands, wooded pockets, and developing roads preserved in a beautifully disciplined cartographic language.
Cities, towns and places on this map
- Gambier, Ohio
- Kenyon College
- Clinton, Ohio
- Monroe, Ohio
- Morris, Ohio
- Surrounding rural areas and farmland
- Roads and trails connecting these towns
- Rivers in the vicinity, including near Clinton
- Parks and forested areas
- Residential zones shown by red urban grid patterns, especially in Clinton
Historical context & cartographic details
- Titled “Mt Vernon”
- Produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
- Dated 1961 and published in 1962
- Historical 1:24,000 topographical map of Gambier, Ohio, and the surrounding area
- Reflects the USGS tradition of comprehensive mapping for land use, scientific research, and geographic documentation
- Shows detailed contour lines indicating elevation changes, hills, valleys, and terrain shape
- Uses color to distinguish land-use features, including agricultural and forested areas
- Captures a period of increased accessibility and development in rural Ohio
- Provides a historical snapshot of the landscape before later changes in land use and urban development
Looking for a particular place? Review the detailed images to confirm that the town, landmark or feature you have in mind appears on the map. If you are unsure, ask our workshop to check before you order.
Detailed maps are especially rewarding at larger sizes, where names, boundaries and decorative features have more room to be appreciated. Use the close-up preview and size guide to choose the right scale for your wall.
This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.
The model in the listing images is holding the 16x20in (40x50cm) version of this map.
Where personalisation is available, you can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. See personalised map examples.
Every piece is printed to museum-grade archival standards using fade-resistant pigment inks on acid-free matte paper. Choose an unframed map print, framed map or canvas using the finish options above. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.
With its rich detail and strong sense of place, this map makes a considered gift for a new home, anniversary, retirement or anyone with a personal connection to the area shown. Still deciding? Explore our collection of rare old and vintage maps to discover another place, period or style.
This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.
For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.
Many of our maps and art prints are chosen as thoughtful gifts for homes, offices, studies and meaningful places.
Choose a framed option for the easiest ready-to-hang gift, or choose an unframed print if the recipient may prefer to select their own frame.
We make orders locally in 23 countries around the world, so gifts can often be produced close to the recipient. This helps them arrive faster, travel more safely, and avoid customs or import duty surprises.
- We can deliver directly to the recipient
- Framed pieces arrive ready to hang
- Unframed prints are carefully packed in a strong protective tube
- Almost every order is made locally, for faster, safer gifting
- 90-day returns give the recipient time to decide
If you are not sure what to choose, please contact us. We can help you pick the right map, size, finish or delivery option.
Most orders are made locally and delivered in around 2–3 working days, depending on the product, size and destination.
We print and frame maps and artwork in 23 countries around the world, so your order is usually made close to you or your recipient. That means faster delivery, less time in transit, and no customs or import duty surprises.
Personalised and customised pieces usually take an extra 1–2 working days, because we prepare your design and send it to you for approval before printing.
Very large framed orders can take a little longer, as they need extra care in production and delivery.
Every order is carefully packaged: unframed prints are sent in a strong protective tube, while framed pieces are securely packed with protective materials around the frame.
If you need your order by a particular date, please contact us before ordering. We’ll check the best production route and delivery option for your location.
Express delivery is available at checkout for most countries. Next-day delivery is available in the UK, US, Singapore and the UAE.
Your order is covered by our 90-day returns policy and 10-year guarantee.
Our standard frame is a gallery-style black ash hardwood frame, with a simple, modern look. It is approximately 20mm (0.8in) wide. You can also view some lovely customer photos of framed maps and art.
We use super-clear acrylic glazing, also known as Perspex or Acrylite, instead of traditional glass. It is lighter, safer, and has lower reflectivity, giving the artwork a clearer, cleaner appearance.
Six standard frame colours are available at no extra cost: black, dark brown, dark grey, oak, white, and antique gold. Custom framing and mounting/matting is also available for customers looking for something more specific.
Most maps, art prints, and illustrations are also available as a framed canvas. We use matte cotton canvas, stretch it over a sustainably sourced wooden box frame, and then float the piece within a wooden outer frame. The finished result is beautifully presented, with no glazing between you and the artwork.
All frames are supplied ready to hang, with either string or brackets fitted to the back. Very large frames will include heavy-duty hanging plates and/or a mounting baton. If you have any questions, please get in touch.
We can also supply old maps and artwork on canvas, foam board, cotton rag, and other materials.
If you would prefer to frame your map or artwork yourself, please read our size guide before ordering.
Every Unique Maps piece begins with an authentic cartographic source or an original design from our London studio.
For our historic maps, we source rare originals from libraries, archives, auction houses and private collections around the world. We carefully restore each map for print—repairing age-related damage, balancing colour and improving clarity while preserving its original detail, texture and character.
Once restored, the map is prepared for your chosen size and finish. Your piece is then printed and, where selected, framed close to its delivery destination.
Our map prints use acid-free 200gsm archival matte paper and fade-resistant pigment inks, creating a rich, non-glossy finish designed to last. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.
Canvas, cotton-rag and other specialist presentations are also available. Learn more about our materials and finishes.
Personalising your map
You can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. For personalised designs, we send a proof before printing and you can request changes before approval.
For more complex bespoke commissions, contact our design team.
Original or Aged
Choose Original for true-to-source colour, or Aged for a warmer, richer antique character created with our specialist ageing process. See examples of our Aged maps.
We’ve been restoring and producing maps and art prints since 1984, and we stand behind every piece.
Every order is covered by our 10-year guarantee and damage-free delivery guarantee. If your piece arrives damaged, we’ll replace or remake it free of charge. If anything else isn’t right, contact our workshop team and we’ll put it right promptly.
See our returns and refund policy for full details.
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