Titled “Grand Forks,” this 1938 United States Geological Survey map presents a richly detailed portrait of northeastern North Dakota at a scale of 1:62,500. Centered on Grand Forks and its counterpart East Grand Forks across the Red River, the map captures a landscape poised between prairie openness, agricultural order, and emerging urban growth. Its township-and-range grid—such as T. 151 N. and R. 50 W.—anchors the region within the surveying system that shaped settlement across the American West and Midwest. Streets, roads, railways, schools, public sites, waterways, and county boundaries appear with the clean precision characteristic of USGS topographic mapping, offering a measured view of the region before the later expansion of Grand Forks transformed its edges and infrastructure.

The United States Geological Survey, founded in 1879, became one of the nation’s most important scientific mapping institutions, producing maps that served engineers, farmers, planners, military personnel, and natural resource managers alike. This Grand Forks sheet belongs to that long tradition of practical elegance: its purpose was utilitarian, yet its disciplined linework and systematic notation give it enduring historical appeal. USGS topographic maps were designed to make the land intelligible—revealing not only where roads and towns stood, but how water moved, how elevations shifted, and how human settlement adapted to terrain. In a region of subtle relief like eastern North Dakota, such cartography required particular care, using contours and hydrographic detail to express a landscape whose changes are broad, low, and quietly significant.

At the heart of the map lies Grand Forks, a city shaped by its position on the Red River of the North. The river forms both a geographical and cultural axis, separating North Dakota from Minnesota while linking Grand Forks with East Grand Forks in a shared river-valley economy. The Red River Valley, famous for its fertile soils and level expanses, appears here as a carefully surveyed agricultural world, crossed by roads, rail lines, drainage features, and section boundaries. Nearby places such as Thompson, Larimore, St. Thomas, Grafton, and Mayville situate Grand Forks within a wider network of market towns and rural communities. The map’s attention to schools and public sites hints at the settlement patterns of the era, when civic institutions punctuated the prairie grid.

The cartographic language of the map is admirably direct: contours trace gentle elevation changes, waterways thread through the plain, and railways cut purposeful lines across the countryside. Unlike maps of mountainous regions, where relief dominates the page, this sheet rewards close looking through its subtleties. The North Dakota landscape is expressed in shallow gradients, river courses, lakes, drainage channels, and the rigorous geometry of cultivated land. County references, including Grand Forks County and Walsh County, help define the administrative landscape, while the Public Land Survey System gives the entire composition a sense of rational order. Roads and unnamed rural routes reveal how movement across the region depended on a combination of surveyed section lines, rail corridors, and river crossings.

As a historical document, the 1938 “Grand Forks” map is especially evocative for what it shows before later waves of growth, modernization, and flood-control development altered the region. Grand Forks would expand substantially in the decades that followed, and the Red River would remain central to the city’s identity, prosperity, and vulnerability. This map preserves an earlier pattern of streets, transportation links, farms, public buildings, and small settlements, offering a snapshot of the region in the late Depression era, just before wartime and postwar changes reshaped the Upper Midwest. Its clarity, restraint, and wealth of local information make it a compelling view of a river city and its prairie hinterland, rendered with the authority and precision of the USGS.

Cities, towns and places on this map

• Grand Forks
• East Grand Forks
• Larimore
• Thompson
• St. Thomas
• Grafton
• Mayville
• River Valley
• Red River
• Walsh County
• Grand Forks County
• Various lakes and rivers
• Numerous unnamed roads and railways
• Township and Range designations, such as T. 151 N, R. 50 W
• Schools and public sites marked

Historical context & cartographic details

• Produced by the United States Geological Survey, or USGS.
• Historical topographical map dating to 1938.
• Scale: 1:62,500.
• The USGS has played a significant role in topographical data collection, land management, infrastructure planning, and natural resource management across the United States.
• Includes a township and range grid system, typical of USGS maps, to aid location referencing.
• Shows elevation changes and landforms through contour lines.
• Reflects the area before later urbanization and development, particularly around Grand Forks.
• Uses a clear, straightforward layout with demarcations that make topographical features easy to read.

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 18x24in (45x60cm) 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.