Frank McCaffrey's Map of Seattle by MCCAFFREY, Frank and Alf I. Restad - 1931

(Seattle): Dogwood Press, 1931. First Edition. Framed under glass. Very Good+. Measures 30.25” x 20.5”. Pictorial map in full color. Oriented with north at left, east on top. An inset reveals street alignment: “To Simplify Seattle's Street Arrangement.” Another inset titled “A Thought on the Hillside” considers, in a quintessential McCaffrey manner, the influence of the region’s natural splendor on “the Seattle Spirit.” Print mounted on old Masonite-like board. Wear to edges; slight 3” gouge to middle of the right edge; scratch running along top left corner that has been archival conserved. Professionally framed within solid mahogany molding, under glass. Very Good+. Published in 1931, a date, per Derek Hayes, when few could afford such frivolities. Indeed, a “hobo” character appears on First Ave. S., just south of Spokane St., singing “Big Rock Candy Mountain” – a harbinger of Seattle’s Hooverville, which would arise nearby in the coming months. Despite national economic collapse, McCaffrey is at the ready to proclaim Seattle’s merits as a place that inspires can-do optimism: “Lie down on your back … on the western slope of Volunteer Park” and an “invisible messenger whispers ‘Man, be up and doing!’” “From such an environment of thought is born the Seattle Spirit … if you really get that spirit you’ll gamble your shirt on the town – and win!” Along with the presence of Boeing, next to the Duwamish River, and other hallmarks of a modern metropolis, McCaffrey can’t help himself, featuring anachronistic holdovers from the 19th C. For instance, the Mosquito Fleet blazes under full steam from Seattle to destinations now obscure such as Manchester (near Port Orchard) and Harper (near Southworth). Comic vignettes abound – golfers in plus-fours looking for unseen golf balls, a driver heading to Tacoma is pulled over by a motorcycle cop, a skier is out of control – on top of Mt. Rainier.Another edition was published 1934 and titled “Frank McCaffrey's New Dogwood Map of Seattle.” Neither are common on the open market. Three copies of this first edition are located in institutions: The Seattle Public Library, the University of Washington Special Collections and the Washington State Library. This is the only we’ve seen for sale. This particular copy was hanging in the basement of Frank McCaffrey’s house, near Cowen Park in Seattle’s University District – the house with the Dogwood Tree outside its bay window. The map appears as an afterthought in Derek Hayes’ Historical Atlas of Washington & Oregon (Berkeley: University of California Press, (2011), the penultimate map in the book, placed amid “Further Reading.” Not in SOLIDAY.