Rare Old Map of Berea, Kentucky by USGS, 1952: Richmond, Berea College & Kentucky River
Restored in our London workshop from the original 1953 map and printed to museum-grade archival standards. Full description
The Collector’s Offer
Choose two eligible works and receive 20% off both. Choose three and the lowest-priced one is complimentary, a maximum saving of 33%.
Mix and match eligible standard maps and fine-art prints. No code is required; the offer is applied automatically at checkout.
Standard made-to-order configurations are included. Bespoke sizes, personalised designs and commissioned work are excluded.
Need delivery to different addresses? Contact us before ordering.The Collector’s Offer
Choose two eligible works and receive 20% off both. Choose three and the lowest-priced one is complimentary, a maximum saving of 33%.
Mix and match eligible standard maps and fine-art prints. No code is required; the offer is applied automatically at checkout.
Standard made-to-order configurations are included. Bespoke sizes, personalised designs and commissioned work are excluded.
Need delivery to different addresses? Contact us before ordering.
Restored from the original 1953 map and printed to museum-grade archival standards. Full description
Choose your size
Choose your finish
(More info)
Gift message & custom finish
If you want to add a gift message, or a finish (jigsaw, aluminium board, etc.) that is not available here, please request it in the "order note" when you check out.
Every order is custom made, so if you need the size adjusted slightly, or printed on an unusual material, just let us know. We've done thousands of custom orders over the years, so there's (almost) nothing we can't manage.
You can also contact us before you order, if you prefer!
Own a piece of history
8,000+ five-star reviews
Titled “Berea Quadrangle, Kentucky,” this mid-century topographical map was surveyed in 1952 and published in 1953 by the United States Geological Survey....
Continue readingTitled “Berea Quadrangle, Kentucky,” this mid-century topographical map was surveyed in 1952 and published in 1953 by the United States Geological Survey. It captures Berea and its surrounding Madison County landscape at a moment when the region still retained much of its rural character, just before the transformative highway expansion and suburban growth of the later twentieth century. The map’s restrained USGS style—precise, clean, and highly legible—places emphasis on the land itself: its ridges, valleys, streams, roads, and settlements. Berea appears not merely as a town, but as a geographic crossroads shaped by upland terrain, local waterways, educational life, and regional travel routes linking central Kentucky with the Appalachian foothills.
The United States Geological Survey brought to this map the institutional authority of one of America’s most influential scientific mapping agencies. Founded in 1879, the USGS became essential to understanding the nation’s geology, water systems, mineral resources, and terrain, producing quadrangle maps that served engineers, planners, conservationists, military users, and travelers alike. This Berea sheet belongs to that great tradition of practical elegance: a map designed for accuracy, yet visually compelling in its disciplined economy. Its contour lines translate the rising and falling Kentucky land into a readable pattern of elevations, slopes, and drainage. The result is both a technical document and a portrait of place, revealing how human settlement bends around the deeper logic of the terrain.
Berea itself anchors the map, with Berea College standing as one of the area’s defining landmarks. Founded in the nineteenth century and known for its progressive educational mission, the college helped shape the town’s identity as a cultural and intellectual center in eastern Kentucky. Around it, the map records roads, smaller settlements, trails, forested tracts, and agricultural clearings, offering a fine-grained view of the community before the full imprint of modern development. U.S. Route 25 and U.S. Route 421 mark important lines of movement through the region, while the later Interstate 75 corridor underscores how this landscape would become increasingly connected to national transportation networks. The map therefore sits at a fascinating threshold between older local geographies and emerging modern infrastructure.
The topographical character of the Berea Quadrangle is especially compelling. Contour lines and elevation shading reveal a landscape of rolling hills, ridges, stream valleys, and broken uplands, characteristic of the transition between Kentucky’s Bluegrass country and the more rugged terrain to the east. Silver Creek, Salts Fork, and numerous smaller streams articulate the drainage pattern, carving gentle valleys and giving structure to the surrounding countryside. Forested areas and rural roads appear in close relationship to the terrain, showing how travel and settlement followed the easiest passages through the hills. The map’s quiet graphic language allows these landforms to emerge with clarity, making visible the complex physical setting that shaped farming, movement, and community life around Berea.
As a historical record, this map offers a revealing snapshot of Berea and its environs in the early 1950s. Its roads, trails, waterways, and built features invite comparison with the contemporary landscape, where expansion, highway development, and changing land use have altered patterns visible here in earlier form. Richmond lies to the north as a nearby urban reference point, while the broader Kentucky River system and local tributaries evoke the hydrological networks that long influenced settlement and agriculture in the region. For collectors, historians, and admirers of Kentucky’s geography, the map is rich with layered meaning: scientific precision, regional identity, and the subtle beauty of a landscape recorded at a particular moment in American postwar history.
Cities, towns and places on this map
- Berea, KY
- Richmond, KY
- Berea College
- Kentucky River
- Salts Fork
- Silver Creek
- Interstate Highway 75
- U.S. Route 25
- U.S. Route 421
- Numerous secondary roads and trails
- Valleys and ridges surrounding Berea
- Forested areas
- Streams and small water bodies
Historical context & cartographic details
- Historical topographical map of the Berea Quadrangle, Kentucky
- Produced by the U.S. Geological Survey using survey data from 1952
- Created in 1952 and published in 1953
- Published by the U.S. Geological Survey, known for extensive mapping and geological research across the United States
- Reflects the geographical features and infrastructure of the Berea area in the early 1950s
- Useful for comparing historic land use and development with the modern landscape
- Features a clean, minimalist design characteristic of mid-20th-century USGS maps
- Uses elevation shading and contour lines to show terrain and topographical variation
- Highlights the rolling hills, ridges, valleys, and terrain complexity typical of this part of Kentucky
Looking for a particular place? Review the detailed images to confirm that the town, landmark or feature you have in mind appears on the map. If you are unsure, ask our workshop to check before you order.
Detailed maps are especially rewarding at larger sizes, where names, boundaries and decorative features have more room to be appreciated. Use the close-up preview and size guide to choose the right scale for your wall.
This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.
The model in the listing images is holding the 16x20in (40x50cm) version of this map.
Where personalisation is available, you can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. See personalised map examples.
Every piece is printed to museum-grade archival standards using fade-resistant pigment inks on acid-free matte paper. Choose an unframed map print, framed map or canvas using the finish options above. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.
With its rich detail and strong sense of place, this map makes a considered gift for a new home, anniversary, retirement or anyone with a personal connection to the area shown. Still deciding? Explore our collection of rare old and vintage maps to discover another place, period or style.
This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.
For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.
Titled “Berea Quadrangle, Kentucky,” this mid-century topographical map was surveyed in 1952 and published in 1953 by the United States Geological Survey. It captures Berea and its surrounding Madison County landscape at a moment when the region still retained much of its rural character, just before the transformative highway expansion and suburban growth of the later twentieth century. The map’s restrained USGS style—precise, clean, and highly legible—places emphasis on the land itself: its ridges, valleys, streams, roads, and settlements. Berea appears not merely as a town, but as a geographic crossroads shaped by upland terrain, local waterways, educational life, and regional travel routes linking central Kentucky with the Appalachian foothills.
The United States Geological Survey brought to this map the institutional authority of one of America’s most influential scientific mapping agencies. Founded in 1879, the USGS became essential to understanding the nation’s geology, water systems, mineral resources, and terrain, producing quadrangle maps that served engineers, planners, conservationists, military users, and travelers alike. This Berea sheet belongs to that great tradition of practical elegance: a map designed for accuracy, yet visually compelling in its disciplined economy. Its contour lines translate the rising and falling Kentucky land into a readable pattern of elevations, slopes, and drainage. The result is both a technical document and a portrait of place, revealing how human settlement bends around the deeper logic of the terrain.
Berea itself anchors the map, with Berea College standing as one of the area’s defining landmarks. Founded in the nineteenth century and known for its progressive educational mission, the college helped shape the town’s identity as a cultural and intellectual center in eastern Kentucky. Around it, the map records roads, smaller settlements, trails, forested tracts, and agricultural clearings, offering a fine-grained view of the community before the full imprint of modern development. U.S. Route 25 and U.S. Route 421 mark important lines of movement through the region, while the later Interstate 75 corridor underscores how this landscape would become increasingly connected to national transportation networks. The map therefore sits at a fascinating threshold between older local geographies and emerging modern infrastructure.
The topographical character of the Berea Quadrangle is especially compelling. Contour lines and elevation shading reveal a landscape of rolling hills, ridges, stream valleys, and broken uplands, characteristic of the transition between Kentucky’s Bluegrass country and the more rugged terrain to the east. Silver Creek, Salts Fork, and numerous smaller streams articulate the drainage pattern, carving gentle valleys and giving structure to the surrounding countryside. Forested areas and rural roads appear in close relationship to the terrain, showing how travel and settlement followed the easiest passages through the hills. The map’s quiet graphic language allows these landforms to emerge with clarity, making visible the complex physical setting that shaped farming, movement, and community life around Berea.
As a historical record, this map offers a revealing snapshot of Berea and its environs in the early 1950s. Its roads, trails, waterways, and built features invite comparison with the contemporary landscape, where expansion, highway development, and changing land use have altered patterns visible here in earlier form. Richmond lies to the north as a nearby urban reference point, while the broader Kentucky River system and local tributaries evoke the hydrological networks that long influenced settlement and agriculture in the region. For collectors, historians, and admirers of Kentucky’s geography, the map is rich with layered meaning: scientific precision, regional identity, and the subtle beauty of a landscape recorded at a particular moment in American postwar history.
Cities, towns and places on this map
- Berea, KY
- Richmond, KY
- Berea College
- Kentucky River
- Salts Fork
- Silver Creek
- Interstate Highway 75
- U.S. Route 25
- U.S. Route 421
- Numerous secondary roads and trails
- Valleys and ridges surrounding Berea
- Forested areas
- Streams and small water bodies
Historical context & cartographic details
- Historical topographical map of the Berea Quadrangle, Kentucky
- Produced by the U.S. Geological Survey using survey data from 1952
- Created in 1952 and published in 1953
- Published by the U.S. Geological Survey, known for extensive mapping and geological research across the United States
- Reflects the geographical features and infrastructure of the Berea area in the early 1950s
- Useful for comparing historic land use and development with the modern landscape
- Features a clean, minimalist design characteristic of mid-20th-century USGS maps
- Uses elevation shading and contour lines to show terrain and topographical variation
- Highlights the rolling hills, ridges, valleys, and terrain complexity typical of this part of Kentucky
Looking for a particular place? Review the detailed images to confirm that the town, landmark or feature you have in mind appears on the map. If you are unsure, ask our workshop to check before you order.
Detailed maps are especially rewarding at larger sizes, where names, boundaries and decorative features have more room to be appreciated. Use the close-up preview and size guide to choose the right scale for your wall.
This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.
The model in the listing images is holding the 16x20in (40x50cm) version of this map.
Where personalisation is available, you can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. See personalised map examples.
Every piece is printed to museum-grade archival standards using fade-resistant pigment inks on acid-free matte paper. Choose an unframed map print, framed map or canvas using the finish options above. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.
With its rich detail and strong sense of place, this map makes a considered gift for a new home, anniversary, retirement or anyone with a personal connection to the area shown. Still deciding? Explore our collection of rare old and vintage maps to discover another place, period or style.
This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.
For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.
Many of our maps and art prints are chosen as thoughtful gifts for homes, offices, studies and meaningful places.
Choose a framed option for the easiest ready-to-hang gift, or choose an unframed print if the recipient may prefer to select their own frame.
We make orders locally in 23 countries around the world, so gifts can often be produced close to the recipient. This helps them arrive faster, travel more safely, and avoid customs or import duty surprises.
- We can deliver directly to the recipient
- Framed pieces arrive ready to hang
- Unframed prints are carefully packed in a strong protective tube
- Almost every order is made locally, for faster, safer gifting
- 90-day returns give the recipient time to decide
If you are not sure what to choose, please contact us. We can help you pick the right map, size, finish or delivery option.
Most orders are made locally and delivered in around 2–3 working days, depending on the product, size and destination.
We print and frame maps and artwork in 23 countries around the world, so your order is usually made close to you or your recipient. That means faster delivery, less time in transit, and no customs or import duty surprises.
Personalised and customised pieces usually take an extra 1–2 working days, because we prepare your design and send it to you for approval before printing.
Very large framed orders can take a little longer, as they need extra care in production and delivery.
Every order is carefully packaged: unframed prints are sent in a strong protective tube, while framed pieces are securely packed with protective materials around the frame.
If you need your order by a particular date, please contact us before ordering. We’ll check the best production route and delivery option for your location.
Express delivery is available at checkout for most countries. Next-day delivery is available in the UK, US, Singapore and the UAE.
Your order is covered by our 90-day returns policy and 10-year guarantee.
Our standard frame is a gallery-style black ash hardwood frame, with a simple, modern look. It is approximately 20mm (0.8in) wide. You can also view some lovely customer photos of framed maps and art.
We use super-clear acrylic glazing, also known as Perspex or Acrylite, instead of traditional glass. It is lighter, safer, and has lower reflectivity, giving the artwork a clearer, cleaner appearance.
Six standard frame colours are available at no extra cost: black, dark brown, dark grey, oak, white, and antique gold. Custom framing and mounting/matting is also available for customers looking for something more specific.
Most maps, art prints, and illustrations are also available as a framed canvas. We use matte cotton canvas, stretch it over a sustainably sourced wooden box frame, and then float the piece within a wooden outer frame. The finished result is beautifully presented, with no glazing between you and the artwork.
All frames are supplied ready to hang, with either string or brackets fitted to the back. Very large frames will include heavy-duty hanging plates and/or a mounting baton. If you have any questions, please get in touch.
We can also supply old maps and artwork on canvas, foam board, cotton rag, and other materials.
If you would prefer to frame your map or artwork yourself, please read our size guide before ordering.
Every Unique Maps piece begins with an authentic cartographic source or an original design from our London studio.
For our historic maps, we source rare originals from libraries, archives, auction houses and private collections around the world. We carefully restore each map for print—repairing age-related damage, balancing colour and improving clarity while preserving its original detail, texture and character.
Once restored, the map is prepared for your chosen size and finish. Your piece is then printed and, where selected, framed close to its delivery destination.
Our map prints use acid-free 200gsm archival matte paper and fade-resistant pigment inks, creating a rich, non-glossy finish designed to last. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.
Canvas, cotton-rag and other specialist presentations are also available. Learn more about our materials and finishes.
Personalising your map
You can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. For personalised designs, we send a proof before printing and you can request changes before approval.
For more complex bespoke commissions, contact our design team.
Original or Aged
Choose Original for true-to-source colour, or Aged for a warmer, richer antique character created with our specialist ageing process. See examples of our Aged maps.
We’ve been restoring and producing maps and art prints since 1984, and we stand behind every piece.
Every order is covered by our 10-year guarantee and damage-free delivery guarantee. If your piece arrives damaged, we’ll replace or remake it free of charge. If anything else isn’t right, contact our workshop team and we’ll put it right promptly.
See our returns and refund policy for full details.
Or try searching for something!
