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In February 1864 the 25th Missouri Infantry and Bissell's Engineer Regiment of the West were consolidated to form the 1st Missouri Engineer Regiment. Also available in digital form.
Topographical strip map between Council Bluffs, Iowa, to west of Great Salt Lake, Utah, showing located and experimental lines and profile of grades.
"President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law on July 1, 1862. The act gave two companies, the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad, responsibility for completing the transcontinental railroad. The Union Pacific was to lay track westward from a point near Omaha, Nebraska, toward Ogden, Utah; the Central Pacific was to build eastward from Sacramento, California. The Union Pacific began construction on December 2, 1863. This map, submitted to Secretary of Interior James Harlan on September 18, 1865, by Lieutenant Colonel J.H. Simpson of the Army Corps of Engineers, shows the different routes between the Missouri River and the Platte Valley in Nebraska surveyed for the Union Pacific. Based on a map submitted by Silas Seymour, consulting engineer to the Union Pacific, the map shows five alternative routes with probable connections to existing railroads. Also shown are relief by hachures, county boundaries, drainage, vegetation, and roads. Nebraska was at this time a territory; it became the 37th state on March 1, 1867. Under the authorizing legislation, the railroad was not to have grades or curves exceeding the maximums on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the first U.S. railroad to cross the Appalachians. This profile shows the careful attention paid by the engineers to the steepness of the grades on alternative routes considered for the line. The horizontal scale shown is one mile to one inch (1.61 kilometers to 2.54 centimeters), and the vertical scale is 60 feet to one inch (18.28 meters to 2.54 centimeters). The profile accompanied a topographic map showing five different routes between the Missouri River and the Platte Valley in Nebraska, which was part of a report submitted to Secretary of Interior James Harlan by Lieutenant Colonel J.H. Simpson of the Army Corps of Engineers." World Digital Library. Detailed map of Nebraska showing relief by hachures, drainage, vegetation, roads, and railroads.
"D. McGowan and George H. Hildt's 1859 map of the United States west of the Mississippi was based on an official map of 1857 produced by the Pacific railroad surveys. In the 1850s, Americans concluded that they needed to build a transcontinental railroad linking the east and center of the country with the Pacific coast. The U.S. Congress authorized the army topographical service to undertake engineering surveys and general assessments of five possible routes: from Saint Paul, Minnesota; from Council Bluffs, Iowa; from Saint Louis, Missouri; from Memphis, Tennessee; and from Vicksburg, Mississippi. Cities, states, and business groups competed fiercely to be the eastern terminus of the transcontinental railroad. This map offers an excellent example of a promotional map used to encourage settlement and investment in the American West. Published in Saint Louis, it emphasizes potential routes emanating from that city. The focus on Pike's Peak highlights the recent discovery of gold in Colorado. The map is hand-colored, framed in decorative borders, and shows drainage, state boundaries, cities and towns, and transportation and communication networks." World Digital Library. Detailed general map framed in decorative borders showing drainage, state boundaries, cities and towns, and the transportation and communication networks. An excellent example of a promotional map to encourage emigration. [From published bibliography]