This 1901 map of Chase County, KS looks to be meant to advertise and/ or sell land plots in Chase County. This reference map divides Chase County into grids in order to easily identify where natural landmarks like rivers and creeks lay in relation to buildings like houses, schoolhouses, and churches.
Dually, this map aims to show the openness of Chase County in an attempt to lure settlers to buy land. Many grids are completely empty and do not display any descriptions of the land’s topography or layout. The emptiness of a grid would display to the audience that the land was barren and easy to build upon and live off of.
Opens grids like 21 and 28 depicted above would lead the audience to assume the land was just a flat plot without any obstacles or landmarks in or around it.
At the top of the map the words “Warren Mortgage Company” lead me to find that this map was an advertisement and used as a tool to help sell these plots of land. It also helps explain why the detail of the map is very simple. This map is not intended to be a navigational map to lead the audience but to show the audience the availability of land plots in the county in the early 1900’s.
The Chase County area was also written about in a way to fill in these blank spaces in William Least-Heat Moon’s PrairyErth (A Deep Map).
Least- Heat Moon’s PrairyErth holds quotes about and accounts from the Chase County area that detail the land and how it is more than just empty plots on a map. While maps like the 1901 account by the Warren Mortgage Company can be helpful for audiences looking to buy land and settle in the Chase County area, it is important to note that it does not display the fullness and detail of each inch of land.
I really like your analysis of the plat map. In particular, I find your emphasis on “blank” space insightful and convincing. It also seems a perfect bridge to discussion of the WLHM deep map. Your reference that very briefly, which seems surprising since not only that document but the Weltzien article concern it (the latter unreferenced in this blog). Those are my two chief critiques. Use all resources in your blogs (objective requirement) and give them the attention they deserve (an admittedly more subjective expectation).
Last, don’t forget to categorize and tag your posts.
Don’t let the critiques fool you, I really like your approach!