Library of Congress acquires rare map

There is no way Don Homuth could have envisioned that the gift he received fourteen years ago from a former teacher would have made this much of a splash in the twenty first century.

Homuth of West Salem thought that he had the only intact copy of "Map of the Square & Stationary Earth" created by religious zealot Orlando Ferguson in 1893. That map of the "flat world" is heading to the Library of Congress, compliments of Homuth.

"It's history," he said. "It's goofy history, but its history. And it belongs to the nation."

But before it was wrapped, packed and transported to Washington, D.C., the buzz generated from the map prompted discoveries of others, most of which were missing a piece of the original printed version.

"After some communication, it appears that we still have the only entirely intact copy of the map," Homuth said. "The discussion with (several online contacts) would seem to indicate that. The others are missing pieces or have been trimmed; ours has not."

Robert Morris, the senior technical information specialist in the Geography & Map division of the Library of Congress, said he searched the library archives after Homuth contacted him & did not find the map among its collection of 5.2 million geography materials.

"The curious thing is - this has gotten a fair amount of press," Morris said of news reports that sprung from Homuth's original offering. "We were contacted by someone who has another one. And there's someone who lives only a couple of miles away from Mr. Homuth who has 1 now.

"Now we know of four copies — three (mostly) complete," he said. "This is an Internet thing: this would have never happened ten to fifty years ago."

Nevertheless, Morris said the ephemeral nature of maps coupled with the unusualness of this one makes its donation and preservation a gem.

Homuth originally received the map as a gift from his eighth-grade math teacher, John Hildreth, years after he had finished school. The Fargo, N.D., educator had an impact on Homuth, & his former student guesses vice versa.