1866 Map of the United States and Territories. Shewing the Extent of Public Surveys and Other Details Constructed from the Plats and Official Sources of the General Land Office
DESCRIPTION
A remarkable portrait of the United States immediately after the Civil War, this enormous 1866 General Land Office map documents the federal government's expanding surveys, railroads, mineral discoveries, public lands, and western frontier from coast to coast.
Constructed from official government plats and records, it combines the familiar political map of the nation with an extraordinary amount of information concerning how its vast western lands were being surveyed, settled, exploited, and connected to the rest of the country. It was prepared by Theodore Franks, under the direction of General Land Office Commissioner Joseph S. Wilson, and engraved by D. McClelland in Washington.
Mapping the Nation's Public Lands
The dense grid spreading across the Midwest and West records the progress of the Public Land Survey System, with surveyed townships contrasting dramatically with enormous areas of the West that remained largely unsurveyed. Land districts, Surveyor General's offices, towns, roads, railroads, Indian reservations, military posts, and federal land grants appear throughout. The map therefore captures the federal government's rapidly expanding administrative presence across the continent only a year after the Civil War ended. The 1866 General Land Office report specifically describes its accompanying maps as showing the extent of public surveys and the resources known from information then available to the government.
Gold, Silver, and the Mineral West
Especially compelling is the map's extensive use of color to identify the country's mineral resources. A key at lower left distinguishes deposits of gold, silver, copper, quicksilver, iron, tin, asphaltum, coal, oil springs, lignite and petroleum, producing extraordinary concentrations of color throughout California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and other western territories. These markings record the mineral discoveries that were drawing prospectors, investment, transportation routes, and settlement into regions still only partially surveyed. Contemporary military forts and posts are also identified, providing a revealing picture of the federal presence across the western frontier.
The American West in 1866
The territorial configuration captures the West at another particularly fluid moment. Montana, Idaho, Dakota, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and the recently admitted state of Nevada occupy enormous areas that would subsequently be divided and reorganized, while present-day Wyoming remains divided among neighboring territories. Railroads and proposed routes extend westward across this changing landscape, while Native American reservations and tribal lands appear alongside mining districts, military posts, newly surveyed townships, and emerging settlements. The map is consequently as much a record of western expansion during the first years after the Civil War as it is a conventional map of the United States.
Issued with the 1866 Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, this was part of an important series documenting the progress of federal surveys. The Rumsey collection describes the accompanying volume as containing the first large colored state maps issued by the General Land Office, while this national sheet brought that information together on an impressive coast-to-coast scale. davidrumsey.com This example has been professionally linen backed, stabilizing the large originally folding sheet and making its exceptionally detailed cartography well suited for display.
CONDITION
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