1863 Sketch of the Public Surveys in the State of Minnesota
DESCRIPTION
This important government survey map captures Minnesota Territory during the final years before statehood, as federal surveyors rapidly divided its southern and eastern lands for settlement.
Prepared at the Surveyor General’s Office in St. Paul on October 26, 1856, the map shows the progress of the public land surveys spreading outward from the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers. The expanding township grid provides a remarkably clear picture of where organized settlement had advanced and where large portions of the territory remained largely outside the federal survey system.
Surveying Minnesota for Settlement
The rectangular survey grid divided the territory into townships and sections, establishing the legal framework through which public lands could be identified, sold and settled. Surveying is most extensive around St. Paul, Fort Snelling and the Mississippi River corridor, while the grid becomes increasingly incomplete toward the north and west. The map also identifies scattered settlements, military posts, rivers, lakes and other geographic features, revealing how strongly Minnesota’s early development followed its major waterways.
Minnesota on the Eve of Statehood
The map appeared during a period of extraordinary change. Minnesota Territory had been organized in 1849, and by the mid 1850s immigration and land speculation were accelerating rapidly. The territory shown here was also considerably larger than the future state. Minnesota would enter the Union in 1858, with its western boundary established well east of the territorial limits represented on earlier maps. As a result, this survey offers a revealing snapshot of Minnesota at a transitional moment, when the federal land system, new settlements and transportation corridors were transforming the territory just before statehood.
CONDITION
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