Published in 1955 using survey data gathered in 1954, the US Geological Survey’s “Lake Nebagamon” captures a northern Wisconsin landscape at a revealing mid-century moment. At 1:24,000 scale, the map gives intimate attention to the village and town of Lake Nebagamon, the lake itself, and the wooded country around it. Its title is modest, but the sheet is rich with evidence of settlement, recreation, transportation, and natural terrain. Blue waters, brown contour lines, green vegetation, and red roads combine in the disciplined visual language of USGS cartography, making the area legible at a glance while preserving its local complexity. The result is both a practical topographical record and a historical portrait of Douglas County’s lake country in the years after World War II.

The US Geological Survey brought to this map the authority of an institution central to American land knowledge since the late nineteenth century. USGS topographic maps were created not merely to show where places were, but to describe how the land worked: its slopes, watersheds, routes, forests, settlements, and usable resources. In “Lake Nebagamon,” that mission is apparent in the careful integration of natural and human features. The familiar USGS cartouche supplies scale, orientation, and publication details with understated precision, while the map’s color system reflects a standardized national cartographic language. Such maps supported engineering, forestry, conservation, recreation, local planning, and resource management, and they remain invaluable for seeing how communities and landscapes were organized before later decades of road expansion and development.

Lake Nebagamon itself forms the visual and geographic heart of the sheet, its shoreline drawn in blue with the clean clarity typical of mid-century federal mapping. Around it, smaller lakes, ponds, wetlands, and streams suggest a glacially shaped terrain, part of the broader lake-and-forest environment of northwestern Wisconsin. The water features are not decorative: they reveal drainage patterns, recreational potential, and the ecological structure of the surrounding land. The contours show subtle elevation changes around the basin, tracing ridges, slopes, and lowlands that influence settlement and access. Together, shoreline, stream course, and contour line create a layered portrait of place, showing Lake Nebagamon not as an isolated resort lake, but as the central feature in a wider hydrological and topographical system.

The map also records the human imprint on this wooded landscape. Roads and trails, marked in red, thread between the village, lakeshore areas, and the surrounding countryside, indicating the transportation network that connected homes, farms, timber lands, and recreational sites in the 1950s. The settlement of Nebagamon appears in relation to the lake rather than apart from it, suggesting the importance of water, access, and leisure to local identity. Green areas denote forest and natural land, giving a sense of the region’s heavily wooded character and the persistence of undeveloped terrain. This balance between roads, settlement, and forest is historically significant: it captures a period when northern Wisconsin was increasingly shaped by automobile travel, outdoor recreation, and managed land use.

As a historical document, “Lake Nebagamon” offers more than geographic orientation; it preserves a mid-twentieth-century baseline against which environmental and community change can be understood. The 1954 survey data records roads, vegetation, shorelines, and land use before many later transformations associated with suburbanization, expanded recreational property, and evolving conservation practices. Its clean design rewards close reading: contours reveal the lie of the land, blue hydrography maps the movement and presence of water, and green shading evokes the forested setting that defined the area’s character. For collectors, historians, and admirers of American topography, this USGS sheet is a quietly elegant study of a Wisconsin lake community—precise, restrained, and deeply evocative of place.

Cities, towns and places on this map

• Lake Nebagamon
• Nebagamon, town or village
• Smaller surrounding water bodies and streams
• Roads and trails marked in red, indicating transportation routes
• Areas of forest and natural land
• Contours representing elevation changes
• Nearby parks or recreational areas shown as green spaces

Historical context & cartographic details

• Produced by the US Geological Survey as a historical 1:24,000 topographical map of Lake Nebagamon, Wisconsin and the surrounding area
• Survey data was collected in 1954 and the map was published with a 1955 imprint
• Created by the US Geological Survey, known for extensive mapping, geological studies, and landscape and resource management work across the United States
• Uses clear color coding: green for vegetation, blue for water bodies, and brown for elevation changes
• Reflects mid-20th century land use and development in Wisconsin
• May help show changes in local land use, environment, urbanization, and land management practices over time
• Features a clearly delineated USGS-style cartouche with scale, publication details, and geographic orientation information

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.