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1894 - 1911. Oak map case, 70 by 10-1/4 by 4-1/2 inches. Case mounts to the wall; hinged door opens to hang down and reveal 3 maps on tin rollers. A fourth roller is empty.

Map 1: Lentell's New Railroad, Township & Educational Map of the State of California compiled from the latest official & authentic sources, adapted for use in institutions of learning, business offices, libraries, etc. 1894. 69-3/4 by 62-3/4 inches. Color map with multiple insets and informational tables. OCLC lists one holding at UCLA. Mounted on cloth with tears to the bottom edge in need of repair.

Map 2: Denny's Official Map of the County of Humboldt California showing Township Sections and Property Ownerships compiled from official surveys, Records and Private data, 1911. Edward Denny & Co. San Francisco. 54-1/4 by 72-1/2 inches. Mounted on thin cloth. Inset of Eureka and Humboldt Bay, and inset of California showing counties. Shows Indian Allotments (Dawes Act). With Historical and Descriptive two-column text. Very nice condition. 5-1/4-inch uneven toning along bottom edge. No holdings listed in OCLC.

Map 3: J. N. Lentell Map of Eureka Humboldt County, Cal. 1904. 54 by 57-1/4. One map on four sheets mounted to a cloth backing on tin rollers. Probably made from an earlier map; printed cancels cover the year and several ownership blocks. Showing block and lot numbers. Earliest printing of this map on OCLC is 1888. Lentell was an engineer. 2-inch hole at bottom of map (but not through cloth backing) at border not affecting text. Vertical seam a bit off on top half. ISBN: 281AIB1047404.

Portland, OR: Portland Printing House, 1908. 495 pages. The author lived in Humboldt County, California (mostly on a ranch on the Mad River), and learned to cut and survey timber in the Douglas fir and redwood forests near his home. While working for a surveyor, he started selling inside information on the value of plots about to be made available to homesteaders.

This was Puter's first exposure to the rampant fraud in government sales of timberland. About the turn of the century, he moved a couple hundred miles north, to Oregon, where he expanded his fraudulent land dealings by overtly hiring men to claim timberland and then transfer the title. The fraud eventually resulted in the indictment of both of Oregon's Congressional representatives and one of its senators. Puter was also indicted and convicted of fraud, and he wrote this tell-all expose from the Multnomah County jail.

The book was edited and supported by Horace Stevens, a former federal land agent, who implores the federal government to invalidate the many fraudulent timber holdings in the Northwest. Despite naming names and testifying in court, Puter's efforts to come clean had little impact. He was pardoned by Theodore Roosevelt prior to the book's publication as a reward for testifying against others in land fraud trials. An uncommon title. ISBN: B0016M36WK.

Wilmington, OH: (n.p.), 1949. 372 pages. Autograph Edition.

A biography of the man who gave Colorado's capital its name -- a land speculator named his settlement after James W. Denver, then governor of the Kansas Territory, which included present-day Colorado. Denver also served as a general during the Civil War and as the Secretary of State of California.

This is one of a small number of copies of this book bound with an original autograph letter. The letter is written on thin tissue paper, which was removed from a copy press book - an early letter copying technology. The writer wrote his letters using a special slow drying ink in a book of thin paper sheets. After the letter was finished, the writer's letterhead was placed below the tissue paper and a special oiled paper was inserted in front of the tissue paper and behind the letterhead, to prevent the ink from spreading to other sheets of paper. The copy book was placed in a modified bookpress for a few seconds, which forced the ink through the copy paper and onto the letterhead sheet. In this way, the writer kept the original and sent the copy on letterhead. ISBN: 281AIB0027262.