BOZEMAN, Mont. - It was a 50-cent garage sale find - the Peerless Atlas of the World.
Bill Hammond, 70, a retired teacher, said he knew the atlas was old when he bought it about 18 years ago at a garage sale near the Gallatin County Courthouse.
When he got it home, Hammond was surprised to see that it had been published in Bozeman, "Compliments of New Issue Publishing Company."
Hammond showed it to friends, family members and neighbors, whose reaction often was, "'Oh my gosh, that's amazing."'
Published probably in 1892, three years after Montana became a state, the atlas is full of maps, drawings, census data and economic statistics.
The Peerless Atlas and the story of how it came about offer a glimpse into Montana's colorful past.
"I showed it to many people, and nobody had even heard of it," Hammond said.
The color map of the United States labeled Oklahoma as "Indian Territory." Hammond noted the atlas reported that Montana's population had more than tripled between 1880 and 1890, growing from 39,159 to 132,159.
The atlas listed facts and figures on everything from the national debt to voting for president, immigration rates, Sunday school attendance, homestead laws, suffrage, the number of Bell telephones in the nation and hog packing statistics from Chicago to Kansas City.
It also offered a brief but lively history of Montana: "With the discovery of gold in Montana, thousands of adventurous people flocked in from all parts of the country, anxious to find the El Dorado for their earthly ambitions - wealth by a short cut." During the first winter, food was so short that 100 pounds of flour sold for $100 in gold.
Early Montana settlers included, it said, "the honest, hardy toiler for bread, men who aimed to live by their wits, robbers, desperadoes and bandits of every nationality." Which sparked creation of the Vigilantes, "who administered the law with unflinching courage, hanging many a miscreant."
John Russell, Pioneer Museum director, said he didn't recall ever seeing the atlas before. "For that day, it's fairly good quality." Asked who was behind New Issue Publishing Co., he said, "It's a little bit of a mystery."
Russell and his staff did some detective work and found that the atlas was probably printed on the Avant Courier newspaper's printing press. The Gallatin Valley Gazetteer - a city directory, also published by New Issue - listed both New Issue and the Avant Courier in the same building on the north side of Main Street. The weekly Avant Courier also advertised its press was available for "Book and Job Printing."
Russell said New Issue appears to have been started around 1891 by Wilder Nutting, a Methodist minister, as a pro-temperance, anti-saloon newspaper.
The Fergus County Argus reported in 1891 that "the Montana Bomb," published in Miles City for the past year, had moved to Bozeman, where it would merge with New Issue.
New Issue was similar to newspapers, the Argus reported, "which preached all manner of 'reforms'. As one of Bozeman's citizens put it, 'The New Issue squats in our town because there are more cranks in Gallatin County and more people who like to be fooled than in any other neck of the woods in the state.' "
By the fall of 1891, Nutting was transferred to a church in Lewistown. New Issue was taken over by Richard Lockey, who branched out to publishing the city directory and atlas.
The Helena Independent reported in November 1892 that Lockey had resigned as president and trustee of New Issue Publishing "because of the unjust attacks made by that paper upon Helena during the campaign for the capital."
The Avant Courier showed no sign of softening its attacks on Helena. The Bozeman newspaper wrote in November 1892 that Great Falls and Bozeman were still in the running to be the state capital, despite the "stupid, intolerable arrogance" of Helena newspapers, and "Helena's bombastic pretentions, arrogance and intolerance (which) are so well known throughout Montana."
After Lockey's departure, the New Issue appears to have gone out of business, leaving behind its Gazetteer and its Peerless Atlas of the World.
