MACHIAS, N.Y. — If you haven’t yet been to the Cattaraugus County Museum to see our current exhibit, “Mapmaker: The Work of Earl McElfresh and the McElfresh Map Company,” there’s still a little time.
As the title makes clear, the exhibit features the work of Olean’s own McElfresh Map company, displaying several of Mr. McElfresh’s hand-drawn and colored historical maps
According to Earl McElfresh, the McElfresh Map Company started in 1993 in Olean with the purchase of a sheet of watercolor paper and a Rapid-o-Graph pen. The watercolors, the colored pencils and the necessary research materials were already on hand.
“The initial investment was approximately $20 and the resulting map of Prairie Grove, the most obscure but still important battle of the Civil War, was not terribly accomplished,” McElfresh said. “Nevertheless we sent it out to quite a number of people. One of them, a woman involved in book publishing, responded. She verbally tore the map apart. An open minded assessment of her harsh criticism made it clear that in almost every regard she was absolutely right. Our next map embodied all of her suggestions. Our first paying customer became the Harvard Map Collection. That was a promising start.”
McElfresh decided to slowly build his reputation by mapping more obscure and overlooked battlefields, such Pea Ridge and Shiloh, so that the maps would be received as welcomed additions to the scholarship and increase exposure to these battlefields.
In the subsequent years, McElfresh has created dozens of maps depicting battlefields ranging from Gettysburg to Pearl Harbor. His works are sold at historic sites and featured in history books, such as “Lincoln’s Lieutenants,” by Stephen Sears.
The exhibit will run through November, and admission to the museum is free.
The Cattaraugus County Museum and Research Library is located in the Stone House, 9824 Route 16 in Machias. Our regular hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. For more information, call (716) 353-8200 or visit cattco.org/museum.
