Fulton County Plat Maps 1913: Banner – CARLI Digital Collections Featured Image

Maps are great candidates for digital presentation. For one, say you have a large, table-sized, map – digitize it and presto! now it’s a manageable size. Then digitization enables stepwise magnification at the clicks of a mouse button. Plus maps are beautiful.

This plat map of Banner Township in 1913 is especially lovely. The soft rose coloring, the undulating lines in the rope-like representation of the mighty Illinois River and its associated lakes. The map is framed by a lacy border that magnification reveals to be a series of globes spun to display the continents of North and South America. The title is surrounded with intricate dot-and-lozenge and delicate curlicue embellishments.

The aforementioned lakes create several little islands. One is called Miserable Island, a long slender slice of land that nearly bisects Rice Lake. Miserable Island seems to be uninhabited, go figure. The township is dotted with plats owned by Peter Fidler, Mathew Fidler, Willard Fidler ,and Jesse Fidler; maybe they are brothers.

Plat maps are useful resources for historical and genealogical research, but they are also works of art and fodder for the imagination.

Written by Mary Rose, Metadata Librarian, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

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