In the Fold: Shorty Shope's Montana Highway Map Collection
In 2021, paper highway maps are impossibly quaint. Why fumble with a poster-sized printout of lines and dots, comically resistant to re-folding, when one can simply mutter a destination into the phone and have it describe a detailed route in nearly human speech?
But our waning reliance on printed maps means something’s been lost. Visitors never fail to boggle at Montana’s sheer size, but an app can’t really express it. Literally unfolding the breadth of Big Sky Country in your lap, one can perhaps comprehend crazy facts about the state’s immensity: It’s bigger than Japan; it has counties bigger than Rhode Island; its southeast corner near Broadus is closer to Texas than to its own opposite corner by Libby. And seen in full, the massive network of interstates, US highways, state roads and sketchy dirt two-tracks resemble an asphalt lung, inhaling travel between far-flung communities, exhaling a seasonal tide of tourists, across vast open spaces.
Something else you won’t find on Google Maps is gorgeous, hand-painted artwork. For that, head to a remarkable storehouse of likewise “obsolete” cultural artifacts, up in the little town of Polson. Dig out your Montana Highway Map; you’ll find the town tucked right under the blue blob of Flathead Lake. There, the Miracle of America Museum’s sprawling campus houses an enormous collection of historical memorabilia from Montana and beyond. And tucked into a tiny corner of this huge archive is a singularly artistic display—a complete collection of Montana highway maps featuring the cowboy art of Irwin “Shorty” Shope.
Shorty Shope was born in Boulder in 1900 and went on to be one of Charlie Russell’s artistic descendants. Raised on a ranch, Shope knew the cowboy life firsthand and translated it faithfully into a body of fine paintings during his long career. But the covers he painted for the Montana State Highway Commission’s highway maps delve wonderfully into a fanciful realm of evocative travel illustration. One wouldn’t think it necessary to exaggerate Montana’s scenery, but Shope nevertheless depicted crenelated, snowclad peaks vaulting skyward above gushing waterfalls, often with a smart-looking Packard or Studebaker rolling briskly through the scene. Shope’s compositions and color palette are instantly iconic, drawing the viewer into landscapes of pure majesty; if you see one of his covers and don’t want to be there right now, it’s clear you were born without a soul.
Printing technology in the 1930s and 1940s sometimes failed to keep pace with Shorty’s vibrant hues, and that’s part of what makes the Miracle of America Museum’s collection irreplaceable. Owner Gil Mangels explains that the museum has five Shope originals, which can be seen alongside the maps made from them. 1939’s “Land of the Shining Mountains” cover, for example, is rendered in pleasant earth tones on the map, but Shope’s original artwork just inches away portrays a sky of robin’s egg blue above a rich, colorful foreground of mountains and highway. A few of the covers draw clear parallels between modes of transportation from the past and (then) present; 1940’s “Roads to Romance” design presents a swirling timeline of covered wagons, Native horsemen, Cavalry soldiers and bucking cowgirls above two lanes of fat-fendered coupes leaning into the wind. And Shope’s work was topical when need be: rather than fedora-hatted anglers slaying big rainbows, the 1942 cover features an armored Lady Liberty drawing her sword, presiding over the miners, surveyors and cattlemen contributing to America’s war effort—seen in a gathering cloud of battleships, guns and tanks just beyond.
The invigorating promise of the Big Sky, whether in its roads to romance, its shining mountains, or its wartime patriotism, couldn’t be better expressed than it was in Shorty Shope’s hands.
His paintings, like the state highway map, tie the corners of Montana together, suggesting common ground across an uncommonly large stretch of land. The value of Shope’s work and its legacy to Montana’s self-image is irreplaceable, and to think that it’s just a tiny bit of the Miracle of America’s vast collection means a road trip is long overdue. So unfold the map, trace along with a finger till interstate green turns to highway red, and hit the brakes just short of that cyan blob of lake. Montana’s attic awaits.
Learn more about the Miracle of America Museum online at
https://miracleofamericamuseum.org/
and visit in person at 36094 Memory Lane, Polson MT 59860
Tags: MAC News, Montana Art News and Montana Arts Council