City of Springfield map, mid 1850s. The Springfield partner in the map production, Birchall & Owen, was a bookshop, pharmacy and sundries store on the south side of the square from 1847 until 1856. Proprietors were Caleb Birchall (1808-60) and Thomas J.V. Owen (1824-76). Map: Sangamon Valley Collection
In Here I Have Lived: The Story of Lincoln’s Springfield (1935), Paul Angle identified this map as the first one ever printed showing the city of Springfield. It was published in E.H. Hall’s Springfield City Directory and Sangamon County Advertiser for 1855-56, according to Angle.
Original hardcover editions of Here I Have Lived included a fold-out 12-inch by 12.5-inch copy of the map between pages 18 and 19. A recent near-facsimile paperback reprint (Forgotten Books, 2015) has the map following page 16, but the image is reduced to 5 inches by 5.5 inches. The shrinkage means the map is only barely readable. Readers can click on SangamonLink’s version above; it should be expandable with most browsers.
Notes:
- City limits in 1856 were approximately today’s Enos Avenue on the north, Allen Street on the south, 19th Street on the east and Rutledge/Pasfield streets on the west.
- Illinois State University (top right ) is the Illinois Department of Corrections Academy (former Concordia Lutheran Seminary) as of 2025.
- The plot marked “Mrs. Mather” south of Monroe Street and west of Second Street became the site of today’s Illinois Statehouse. The block marked “State Capitol” on the map is, of course, today’s Old Capitol State Historic Site.
- The plot marked “Grave Yard” is the Old City Cemetery.
Gemini and Cancer streets were extensions of Carpenter and Miller streets east of Fifth Street. The Gemini and Cancer names were discarded later- Market Street was renamed Capitol Avenue in 1877.
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