Name/Title
1904 - YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK / Northern Pacific Railroad / Henry WellgeDescription
Not to be outdone by the Union Pacific with their bird’s-eye poster featuring Yellowstone attractions, the Northern Pacific Railroad responded with their version of a Yellowstone-centric bird’s-eye. Their bird’s-eye, illustrated by Henry Wellge of Milwaukee, dealt directly with the topography of the Park, rather than with the greater Northwest region, as did the Union Pacific poster.
Henry Wellge was a prolific and successful lithographer and publisher of panoramic maps from the 1870s to the early 1900s. Traveling extensively, he created municipal panoramic maps in at least 24 states, including Montana. This Yellowstone piece, printed toward the end of Wellge’s professional career, was copyrighted in 1904, then assigned to the Northern Pacific Railroad, most likely before 1910, after which the railroad added their corporate monads to the image. Unfortunately, while the poster is signed by its illustrator (Wellge), the printer is not noted on the poster and remains unknown today.
Based on the number of copies that have come to market, the Wellge poster was more aggressively printed and distributed than the Union Pacific’s bird’s-eye. As insight into this marketing effort, the period magazines advertised “Beautiful Yellowstone Park Panorama – FREE …10 cents for tube and shipping”. The poster was also provided to Northern Pacific depots, their hotels and recruiting stations in the U.S. and Europe.
An original copy of the map is held by the Lancaster Yellowstone Collection as well as by many institutional archives and private collections, but few are in excellent condition. Most have suffered sunlight exposure damage as well as physical damage incurred when the large sheets were handled.Create Date
June 2, 2026Update Date
June 2, 2026