Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America

After Lewis & Clark

During the first decade of the nineteenth century, the geographic image
of western North America began to change dramatically. Based on
the observations of Lewis and Clark, information gathered from
native people, and Clark’s own cartographic imagination, this image
evolved from an almost empty interior with a hypothetical single
mountain range serving as a western continental divide, to an intricate
one showing a tangle of mountains and rivers. A continent that
had once seemed empty and simple was now becoming full and complex.

It would take another fifty years
after Lewis and Clark to complete the cartographic image of the
West we know today. Other explorers and map makers followed, each
revealing new geographic and scientific details about specific
parts of the western landscape. But this revealing process was
not a simple one. New knowledge did not automatically replace old
ideas; some old notions—especially about river passages across
the West—persisted well into the century. In the decades after
Lewis and Clark the company of western explorers expanded to include
fur traders, missionaries, and government topographers, culminating
in the 1850s with the Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers surveying
the southwestern and northwestern boundaries of the United States
as well the potential routes for a transcontinental railroad. By
the time of the Civil War, an ocean-to-ocean American empire with
borders clearly defined was a fact of continental life.

The Journeys of Zebulon Montgomery Pike

In mid-July 1806 Lewis and Clark were on their way back from the
Pacific. At the same time young army Lieutenant Zebulon Montgomery
Pike left St. Louis with twenty-three men to reconnoiter the Spanish
borderlands. Unlike the other expeditions commissioned by Jefferson,
Pike did not travel by the command of the president. Instead, he
took his orders from General James Wilkinson, governor of the Louisiana
Territory and sometime secret agent for the Spanish. Pike carried
out two expeditions for Wilkinson. The first (August 1805–April
1806) took him up the Mississippi River into present-day Minnesota.
The second expedition began in July 1806 and drew to a close in
late June 1807. As drafted by Wilkinson, Pike’s instructions took
the explorer into lands that were part of the Spanish empire. And
in February 1807, near present-day Alamosa, Colorado, Spanish forces
took Pike and his men into custody. Pike was a spy but just who
he was spying for remains an open question. Pike’s account of his
southwestern adventures, published in 1810, drew additional attention
to the region and its possible future as part of an expanding American
empire.

Pike’s
Survey of the Upper Mississippi River

General
James Wilkinson, then governor of Upper Louisiana, chose
Pike to lead an exploratory expedition along the Mississippi
River north of St. Louis. Although instructed to chart the
river and observe its natural resources and places suitable
for military and commercial establishments, Pike also attempted
to locate the river’s headwaters. Leaving St. Louis in August
1805, he ascended the river as far as Leech Lake in Minnesota,
missing its source by more than 50 miles. Upon Pike’s return
to St. Louis in April 1806, Anthony Nau compiled a large,
four-sheet manuscript map of the Upper Mississippi River,
based on Pike’s field notes and sketch maps.

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Anthony Nau, compiler.
“A Sketch of the Mississippi from the Town of St.
Louis to its source in Upper Red Cedar Lake. . . Taken from the notes of Lieutenant
Zebulon Montgomery Pike . . . 1805 and 1806.”
St. Louis: ca. 1806. Page 2.
Manuscript map.
Courtesy of National Archives,
Washington, D.C. (102)

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Searching for the source of the Mississippi River

In the summer of 1805, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike
extended his orders to include a search for the source of
the Mississippi River. After spending the winter in present-day
Minnesota, Pike and his party returned to St. Louis in April
1806, just months before his more momentous venture up the
Arkansas River.Pike’s journal is open to September 23,1805,
when Pike reached the Rock River in northwestern Illinois
and encountered the Sauk tribe and their chief Black Hawk.

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Zebulon Montgomery Pike (1779–1813).
“An Account of a voyage up Mississippi River from
St. Louis to its Source . . . August 9, 1805–April 30, 1806” [copied by
Nicholas King]. Page 2.
Manuscript journal, September 23, 1805. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (99)

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Pike’s
Field Notes

This small notebook, which was among the papers
confiscated from Zebulon Pike during his captivity in Mexico
in 1807 and returned to the State Department in 1910, includes
sketch maps and field observations from 1805–1807. It includes
data from his expeditions along the upper Mississippi and
into the Spanish borderlands. On the pages displayed above,
dated September 8 through September 25, 1805, Pike recorded
distances and observations as his party traveled along the
Mississippi River. The entries conclude when the expedition
reached the Falls of St. Anthony in present-day Minneapolis.

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Zebulon Pike.
[Notebook of maps, traverse
tables, and
meteorological observations, 1805–1807].
Field notebook, September 8-September 25, 1805.
Courtesy of the National Archives,
Washington, D.C. (104)

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Up the Arkansas River to the Rocky Mountains

Suspected of spying, Pike and his party were
intercepted and detained by Spanish authorities in Colorado.
In this letter to Secretary of State James Madison, President
Jefferson urges him to deny that Pike had any role as a spy
and explain that he was under orders to explore the watersheds
of the Arkansas and Red Rivers. The president suggested that
the Spanish forces who escorted him through Texas to Natchitoches,
Louisiana, be reimbursed from the War Department funds.

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Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
to
James Madison (1751–1836), August 30, 1807.
Manuscript letter. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (107)

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The “Santa
Fe Trail”

This
small sketch map, with west located at the top, is reportedly
the first American map depicting the Santa Fe Trail. Although
the map is in Pike’s hand, it does not depict the route he
traversed but was probably prepared as a reference map showing
a 1797 trek by three French traders, operating out of the
St. Louis area, from the juncture of the Platte and Missouri
Rivers to Santa Fe (identified as St. Affee at the top of
the page). When Pike was detained in February of 1807, this
map was confiscated by Spanish authorities who suspected
that it depicted a military route to their settlement.

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Zebulon Pike.
[Map of the “Santa Fe Trail”],
St. Louis: ca. 1806.
Manuscript map.
Courtesy of National Archives,
Washington, D.C. (103)

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Freeman’s Survey of the Red River, 1806

In
1806, despite the threat of Spanish opposition, surveyor
and astronomer Thomas Freeman and naturalist Peter Custis,
set out to explore the Red River, the southern boundary of
the Louisiana Purchase. Their objective was to locate the
river’s source, thought to be in the vicinity of the Spanish
outpost of Santa Fe. After traveling approximately 600 miles,
the small party was confronted by Spanish troops and the
mission was aborted. The expedition’s route is recorded on
this manuscript map. The area explored by Freeman, in present-day
Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, was also incorporated
into Zebulon Pike’s official report map published in 1810.

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Nicholas King (1771–1812).
“Map of the Red River in Louisiana from the Spanish
Camp where the exploring party of the U.S. was met by the Spanish troops to where
it enters the Mississippi . . .” Washington, D.C.: 1806.
Manuscript map.
Courtesy of the National Archives,
Washington, D.C. (100)

“Map of the Red River in Louisiana from the Spanish Camp where the exploring party of the U.S. was met by the Spanish troops to where it enters the Mississippi . . .”
Philadelphia.: 1806.
Engrav’d by F. Shallus. Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress

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Surveying
the Spanish Southwest

After exploring the region adjacent to the peak
that bears his name in Colorado, Pike traced the north fork
of the Arkansas and searched for the Red River’s source.
Ill-prepared for harsh winter weather, Pike and his men built
a small stockade on the upper Rio Grande. Here they were
captured by the Spanish in February 1807 and taken to Santa
Fe and on to Chihuahua, Mexico. Pike was eventually released,
but his notes and documents were confiscated. His 1810 published Account was
largely created from memory. Although the text is poorly
written and disorganized, it gave the public its first detailed
knowledge of settlements and southwestern lands beyond the
Spanish border.

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Zebulon Pike. An Account of Expeditions to
the Sources of the Mississippi, and Through the Western Parts
of Louisiana . . . During the Years 1805, 1806, and 1807.
And a Tour Through the Interior Parts of New Spain
. . .in the Year 1807. Philadelphia: C. & A. Conrad, et al., 1810. Rare Book and Special
Collections Division, Library of Congress (108)

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Louisiana Boundary

Baron Alexander von Humboldt, whose explorations
of South America, Mexico, and the North American Southwest
were later published in thirty volumes, regularly corresponded
with Thomas Jefferson about his findings. In this exchange
of letters, Humboldt complained that Arrowsmith and Zebulon
Pike had used his maps of Spanish America without permission
or attribution. Jefferson responded, “That their Arrowsmith
should have stolen your Map of Mexico, is in the piratical
spirit of his country” and sought von Humboldt’s forgiveness
for Pike borrowing information in his report.

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  Baron Alexander von Humboldt
  (1769–1859)
  to Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826),
  December 20, 1811 (in French). Page 2.
  Karl Bodmer (1809–1893),
  Manuscript letters. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (107A)

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  Jefferson to von Humboldt,
  December 6, 1813. Page 2.
  Manuscript letters. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (107B)

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Long’s Expedition to the Central and Southern Plains

The Lewis and Clark expedition established
the precedent for army exploration in the West. Major Stephen H.
Long’s Scientific Expedition (1819–1820) advanced that tradition
of military exploration, this time centering attention on the central
and southern Great Plains and the Front Range of the Rockies. For
the first time an American exploring party included professional
scientists (a zoologist and a botanist) and two skilled artists.
While not every future American expedition took along such skilled
observers, the pattern was set for increasingly scientific exploration.

Despite its valuable published narrative,
important maps, and compelling visual records, the Long expedition
continues to suffer from a misconception about its impact on the
American settlement of the Great Plains. In his “General Description
of the Country” Long branded portions of the central plains as “almost
wholly unfit for cultivation, and, of course, uninhabitable by
a people depending on agriculture.” Most telling, he labeled part
of the high plains on his 1821 map as “the Great American Desert.” Some
writers have concluded that the notion of the “Great American Desert” deterred
Americans from settling on the plains. Although a handful of maps
and textbooks picked up this phrase, most Americans continued to
think about the West as Jefferson envisioned it—as a garden of
the world, an Eden in the West.

Discover!

Maps of Long’s Explorations

These
companion maps, both included in the published account of
Long’s 1819–1820 Scientific Expedition, delineate the expedition’s
route from St. Louis up the Missouri and Platte Rivers to
the Rocky Mountains. Much of the information for the eastern
half of the map (above left) was borrowed from commercial
sources. The western half, based on Long’s own explorations
and earlier surveys, corrected many geographical errors made
by previous expeditions. Boldly blazoned, however, on the
southern plains is Long’s faulty characterization, “Great
American Desert.”

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  Stephen H. Long (1784–1855).
  “Country Drained by the Mississippi, Eastern Section,” Page 2.
  in Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh
  to the Rocky Mountains:
  performed in the years 1819 and ’20 . . . Philadelphia: H.C. Carey and I. Lea, 1822.
  Engraved maps. Rare
  Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (109)

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  Stephen H. Long (1784–1855).
  “Country Drained by the Mississippi . . . Western Section,”
  in Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh
  to the Rocky Mountains:
  performed in the years 1819 and ’20 . . . Philadelphia: H.C. Carey and I. Lea, 1822.
  Engraved maps. Geography and Map
  Division, Library of Congress (109A)

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First
Western Expedition by Steamboat

Major Stephen Long led the first western exploration
expedition to utilize a steamboat as its main means of transportation.
Titian Peale, an artist and assistant naturalist on the Long
expedition, recorded in his journal that the party left St.
Louis by the steamboat “Western Engineer” on June 21, 1819.
The steamboat failed to provide reliable transportation.
After wintering near Council Bluffs, north of present-day
Omaha, Nebraska, the expedition explored the Platte and Arkansas
Rivers on horseback.

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Titian Ramsay Peale (1799–1885).
Manuscript journal
[kept 1819–1820],
June 21, 1819. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (110)

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“Western Engineer”

Major Long helped design the steamboat “Western
Engineer,” which was built at Pittsburgh for the first exploration
of western rivers by steamboat. This side wheel steamboat
proved unsuitable for the expedition because it was underpowered,
drew too much draft, and relied on unfiltered river water
for steam that continually clogged the engines. In this delicate
riverscape, Titian Peale sketched the steamboat on the wide
Missouri River. The steamboat was abandoned at Ft. Lisa about
600 miles above St. Louis on the Missouri River. The expedition
proceeded on horseback to explore the Platte and Arkansas
rivers.

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Titian Ramsay Peale.
[Riverside with small view
of “Western Engineer”],
1819–1820.
Watercolor.
Courtesy of the American Philosophical

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Titian Peale, Assistant Naturalist

Although the Long expedition was chronically
ill-equipped and, because of harsh conditions, had to abandon
exploring the headwaters of the Arkansas River, the party
did gather valuable data on the natural history and ethnography
of the region. Titian Peale made 122 sketches on the expedition
and collected birds, reptiles, mammals, and fish specimens
along with Indian artifacts to add to the Peale Museum collections,
which was under the direction of his father Charles Willson
Peale in Philadelphia. The sketches shown above are typical
of those made by Peale—small scale for easy portability
and carefully rendered using a fine brush or pen.

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  Titian Ramsay Peale.
  [Lavender blossoms],
  August 3, 1820.
  Watercolor, pencil.
  Courtesy of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia
  (111A)

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  Titian Ramsay Peale.
  [Bison Hunt],
  1820 [February].
  Watercolor, ink.
  Courtesy of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia
  (111B)

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  Titian Ramsay Peale.
  “Ottoes (Siouan Indian),” May 1820.
  Courtesy of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia
  (111C)

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  Titian Ramsay Peale.
  [Sandhill crane], March 1820,
  Watercolor.
  Courtesy of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia
  (111D)

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  Titian Ramsay Peale.
  [Shell],
  May 1819.
  Watercolor.
  Courtesy of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia
  (111E)

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Account
of the Long Expedition

One-time scenic designer, Samuel Seymour was
recruited as the official artist of the Long expedition.
Its official report, Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh
to the Rocky Mountains, reproduces eight landscape views
of the more that 150 sketches Seymour made while on the expedition.
His “View of the Chasm through which the Platte issues from
the Rocky Mountains” (above right) is considered
the first published image of the Rockies made from direct
observation. The report was compiled by Edwin James, the
expedition’s botanist and geologist.

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  Samuel
  Seymour (1796–1823).
  “View of Chasm through which the Platte issues
  from the Rocky Mountains”
  in Edwin James (1797–1861) Account of
  an Expedition from Pittsburgh to
  the Rocky Mountains: Performed in the Years 1819-20 . . .
  Under the Command of M. Stephen H. Long from the Notes of
  Major Long, Mr. T. Say, Other Gentlemen of the Exploring
  Party. Philadelphia: H.C. Carey and I. Lea, 1822 (1823).
  Hand-colored engravings [frontispieces]. Rare Book and Special
  Collections Division, Library of Congress (112b)

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  Samuel
  Seymour (1796–1823).
  “Distant View of the Rocky
  Mountains”
  in Edwin James (1797–1861) Account of
  an Expedition from Pittsburgh to
  the Rocky Mountains: Performed in the Years 1819-20 . . .
  Under the Command of M. Stephen H. Long from the Notes of
  Major Long, Mr. T. Say, Other Gentlemen of the Exploring
  Party. Philadelphia: H.C. Carey and I. Lea, 1822 (1823).
  Hand-colored engravings [frontispieces]. Rare Book and Special
  Collections Division, Library of Congress (112a)

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The
Prairie

The Prairie is one of five novels that
make up James Fenimore Cooper’s enduring Leatherstocking
Tales. In this third novel of the Cooper series, protagonist
Leatherstocking, despondent over the destruction of the forests,
escapes to the Great Plains. Cooper’s vivid descriptions
of the central plains were deeply influenced by the published
report of the Long expedition. This inspirational role was
true of other expeditions. Publication of the actual experiences
of nineteenth-century explorers consistently inspired writers
and fueled the public’s imagination.

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James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851). The Prairie.
Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Carey, 1827. Rare Book and Special
Collections Division, Library of Congress (114)

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The Fur Trade

Fur traders—whether working for
themselves or for the great trading companies—were critically
important for the exploration and mapping of the North American
West. The 1820s and 1830s are often viewed as an interlude in the
collection and dissemination of geographical knowledge of the West.
The federal government sponsored no further scientific expeditions
until the late 1830s. The Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers
was not formally established until 1838. Instead, important explorations
were undertaken by fur traders busy searching for new beaver countries.
Traders like Jedediah Smith traveled extensively in the plains
and Rockies, sharing their information at trapper’s rendezvous
and with army officers, missionaries, and overland emigrants. Most
important, fur trade geographic knowledge was embedded in a number
of popular books such as those written by Washington Irving and
in maps produced for the government by David Burr, the geographer
to the House of Representatives.

Missionary Map of the Pacific Northwest

Father
de Smet, representing a long tradition of missionary explorers,
was an indefatigable traveler and a keen observer of the
Indian peoples and physical geography of the West. In 1851,
de Smet prepared this manuscript map of the Upper Great Plains
and the Rocky Mountain region. Tribal chiefs, Indian agents,
military officers, and fur traders contributed to its contents.
It is the most detailed and accurate record of the locations
of mountain ranges, rivers, forts, and major trails of this
region prior to the western railway surveys. Overlaying the
map’s physical features are boundary lines intended to define
tribal lands and limit tribal rivalries.

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Pierre Jean de Smet (1801–1873). [Map of the Upper Great Plains
and Rocky Mountains Region], 1851.
Manuscript map. Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress (131)

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Discover!

Winter Count

Chief Battiste Good, a Brulé Dakota (Sioux)
made this copy of a Sioux winter count in 1907 while living
on the Rosebud Agency, South Dakota. Winter counts were used
to mark significant events. A circle of lodges represents
a cycle of year. Individual events are depicted by buffalo
hunts, fights with neighboring tribes, famines, and other
particular occurrences. There are no discernible depictions
to mark the passage of the Corps of Discovery or any of the
other official expeditions that would have traveled through
the region. But depictions of forts, encounters with missionaries,
and fur trading ventures are marked throughout the calendar.

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Battiste Good (1821–ca. 1907),
Dakota Brulé Winter
Count
[1230–1907], ca. 1907.
Watercolor, pen, and ink on paper. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (135A)

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House of Representatives Geographer

David
Burr, geographer to the House of Representatives, was one
of the most accomplished, early nineteenth-century American
cartographers. In addition to government maps, he produced
a large body of commercial maps and atlases, including this
map of the United States, which is heavily dependent in its
depiction of the West on geographic information provided
by the St. Louis fur trade entrepreneur and Missouri Congressman
William H. Ashley. In particular, Burr utilized the geographic
knowledge and mapping of fur trader Jedediah Smith. The map
specifically shows Smith’s 1826–1827 and 1827–1829 expeditions.

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David Burr (1803–1875). Map
of the United States of North America with Parts of the Adjacent
Countries . . . London: 1839.
Hand-colored engraved map. Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress (132)

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Basin of the Columbia and Snake Rivers

Born
in France but educated at the U. S. Military Academy, Captain
Benjamin Bonneville, while on leave from the U.S. Army, led
a fur trapping expedition into the Oregon Country in 1832.
He spent the next three years dispatching parties of trappers.
There is conjecture that Bonneville was also acting as a
government agent gathering intelligence on the natural resources
and British activities in the West. This is one of two maps
published in an account by author Washington Irving based
on Bonneville’s experience with the fur trade. The map accurately
depicts the drainage basin of the Columbia/Snake system and
the other major rivers of the Northwest.

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[Benjamin Bonneville (1796–1878)].
“Map of the Territory West of the Rocky Mountains” [western
portion] from Washington Irving. The Rocky Mountains, or, Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures
in the Far West . . ..
Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1837.
Engraved map. Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress (133A)

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The Fur Trade Popularized

Captain Benjamin Bonneville sold the story of
his adventures in the fur trade to Washington Irving, who,
in 1837, turned it into a narrative entitled The Rocky
Mountains, or, Scenes, Incidents and Adventures in the Far
West. The two-volume publication was enormously popular
and among the most important literary descriptions of the
Rockies and the West prior to the reports of the government
sponsored expeditions of the 1840s and 1850s.

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Washington Irving (1783–1859). The Rocky Mountains, or,
Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in the Far West . . ..
Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1837. Page 2.
Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (133)

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Map of Indian Tribal Distributions

Albert
Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury under presidents Jefferson
and Madison, also became an authority on North American Indian
languages. From the time of his meeting with Alexander von
Humboldt, when the German geographer visited Jefferson in
1804, Gallatin developed an interest in native languages
and continued to collect information about tribal distributions
throughout his career. In 1836 at age 75, he compiled this
map depicting ten major ethno-linguistic families to accompany
the publication of his findings on the classification of
North American Indian languages. The map also incorporates
information gleaned from the explorations of the fur trapper
Jedediah Smith.

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Albert Gallatin (1761–1849).
“Map
of the Indian Tribes of North America, about 1600 A.D along the Atlantic, & about
1800 A.D. Westerly . . .” from Transactions and Collections of the American
Antiquarian Society. Cambridge: 1836.
Hand-colored engraved map. Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress (20)

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Crossing the Sierra Nevada to California

Considered one of the great rarities of Western
Americana, the narrative of Zenas Leonard vividly chronicles
his 1831–1833 travels through the Rocky Mountains, trapping
beaver with one of several rival fur companies, as well as
his amazing adventures with Joseph R. Walker’s expedition
to California. Leonard captures the Walker party’s struggle
to survive on the crest of the Sierra during the brutal winter
of 1833 and the thrill of finding Yosemite Valley and a southern
pass through the Sierra Nevada. Leonard’s account was originally
serialized in his hometown newspaper, the Clearfield
Democratic Banner.

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Zenas Leonard (1809–1857). Narrative of the Adventures
of Zenas Leonard: Native of Clearfield County, Pa., who spent
five years in Trapping for furs, Trading with the Indians, &c., &c.,
of the Rocky Mountains, written by Himself. Clearfield,
Pa.: D. W. Moore, 1839. Rare Book and Special
Collections Division, Library of Congress (135)

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Fur Traders

Artist Alfred Jacob Miller accompanied British
Captain William Drummond Stewart on a hunting expedition
to the Northern Rockies in1837, attending a fur trappers’
rendezvous on Wyoming’s Green River. Miller returned to his
home in New Orleans to turn the sketches he had made in the
field into a series of paintings of western scenes, particularly
of landscapes, hunting and trapping scenes, and Indian life.
For the next thirty years, Miller would parlay his brief
western experience into a career as one of the most prominent
nineteenth-century painters of the American West.

Alfred Jacob Miller (1810–1874). Trappers, 1837.
Watercolor, ink, pencil on paper.
Courtesy of Josyln Art Museum,
Omaha, Nebraska (134A)

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Wilkes and Frémont Expeditions

With Americans beginning to settle in Oregon and because of the
tensions that finally exploded in the Mexican War, there was growing
national interest during the 1840s in further exploration of the
Far West, Southwest, and Pacific Northwest. Two explorers—Lieutenants
Charles Wilkes and John C. Frémont—made major contributions
to western exploration during this period. Their journeys were
part of the nation’s sense of Manifest Destiny, the nineteenth-century
belief that territorial expansion was a preordained right. Under
the sponsorship of the U. S. Navy, Wilkes’s United States Exploring
Expedition (1838–1842) surveyed the Pacific Basin. While most of
his attention was centered on the South Sea Islands and Antarctica,
he did chart parts of the Pacific Northwest and the mouth of the
Columbia River. Frémont, the nation’s self-proclaimed “Pathfinder,” led
five scientific expeditions into the West from 1842 to1854. The
first three of these were undertaken by the Army’s Corps of Topographical
Engineers, and the latter two were private ventures. Frémont’s
official reports, written with the assistance of his wife Jessie,
daughter of expansionist-minded Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton,
gave Manifest Destiny a popular text. Frémont’s maps, drawn
in conjunction with cartographer Charles Preuss, were landmarks
in an expanding appreciation for the complexities of western geography.

Wilkes’
Map of the Pacific Northwest

The
U.S. Exploring Expedition, a squadron of five ships commanded
by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, U.S.N., set sail in1838 on
a four-year scientific expedition to collect scientific specimens
from Antarctic waters, the Fiji and Hawaiian Islands, and
the western coast of North America. Reaching North America
in 1841, they spent considerable time in Puget Sound and
San Francisco Bay. The resulting map of the Oregon Territory,
which was published with Wilkes’s official 1845 report, displays
the region’s relief, drainage, and Indian tribes. It also
includes a large inset of the Columbia River from its mouth
to the Snake River.

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Charles Wilkes (1798–1877). Map of the Oregon Territory.
By the U.S. Ex. Ex . . . 1841 from Narrative
of the United States
Exploring Expedition. . . .
Philadelphia: 1845.
Hand-colored engraved map. Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress (116)

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Charting the Oregon Waterways

Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes led his five-vessel
fleet across the bar of the Columbia River on August 6, 1841,
near the end of a four-year surveying expedition. Wilkes
surveyed and charted 1600 miles of the coast of Antarctica,
hundreds of Pacific islands, and nearly 800 miles of coastline
and Oregon waterways. Wilkes and the United States government
were very concerned with establishing a boundary claim to
counter those of Great Britain in the American northwest.
In the journal displayed above, Wilkes records the expedition’s
approach to the mouth of Columbia River.

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Charles Wilkes (1798–1877).
Journal entry, August
6, 1841. Page 2. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (117)

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American
Claims to Oregon Territory

Lieutenant Charles Wilkes stressed the importance
of exploration for American claims to the northwest coast
in this letter to the Secretary of the Navy, Abel Upshur.
Establishing a boundary claim to counter those of Great Britain
in the American northwest was of great concern to the U.S.
government. Wilkes sought “as much knowledge of this country
as possible, being well aware of the importance of accurate
information for the government in regard to the value of
the country, pending the settlement of the boundary question.” Britain
and the United States settled the Oregon boundary issue by
treaty in 1846.

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Charles Wilkes to Abel Upshur,
May 15, [1842].
Letterbook copy. Page 2. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (118)

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Narrative of the Wilkes Expedition

While anchored at Astoria in August 1841, the
expedition visited the primeval pine forest along the Columbia
River. As this illustration shows, the party marveled at
the gigantic growth that produced trees more than thirty-nine
feet in circumference and an estimated 250 feet high. The
official government edition of Wilkes’s Narrative was
published in 1845 in a limited edition of 100 sets, 63 of
which were given to states and foreign nations and 25 were
destroyed by fire. The scientific data collected by nine
expedition naturalists was published from 1846 to 1874 in
twenty-one limited-edition folio volumes that included illustrations
and atlases.

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W.E. Tucker, after J. Drayton.
Pine Forest, Oregon.
Wood engraving in Charles Wilkes. Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition, 1838–1842. Philadelphia: C. Sherman & Son, 1858. Rare Book and Special
Collections Division, Library of Congress (119a-d)

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Sutter’s Fort

Titian Peale, who had been on the Long expedition,
was also a member of the Wilkes-led Exploring Expedition.
As on the Long expedition, Peale kept a journal in addition
to his duties as artist-naturalist. When Peale and his party
reach the prosperous ranch of Captain Sutter in California,
Peale wrote: “The Mexican government have made a conditional
grant of 30 square leagues of land to Capt. Sutter, a Swiss
gentleman, for the purpose of Settling this portion of California.
He commenced about two years since, and is now building extensive
corrals and houses of adobes, by Indian labor for which he
pays in goods.” Peale also captured Sutter’s “Fort” in the
watercolor above.

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  Titian Peale (1799–1885).
  Manuscript journal,
  October 19, 1841. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (120)

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  Sutter’s Fort,
  October 19, 1841.
  Watercolor.
  Courtesy of the American Philosophical
  Society, Philadelphia (120A)

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Plants Collected

William Dunlop Brackenridge served as horticulturist
and Titian Peale as artist-naturalist for the U.S. Exploring
Expedition. The two naturalists, along with mineralogist
James Dana, formed an expedition party sent inland to investigate
the interior geography and resources of Oregon and California.
Wilkes’s expedition returned to Washington, D.C., with tens
of thousands of natural history specimens and ethnographic
artifacts gathered in South America, the Pacific Islands,
the Far East, and the Pacific Northwest and California. The
bulk of the scientific specimens collected on the four-year
voyage became the foundation for the collections of the Smithsonian
Institution’s Museum of Natural History.

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  Herbarium of the U.S. Exploring Expedition under the Command
  of Capt. Wilkes. Balsamorhiza deltoidea, Oregon,
  Nasqually [Nisqually] (Northwest balsamroot).
  Herbarium sheet.
  Courtesy of the National Museum of Natural History, Washington,
  D.C. (120C)

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  Herbarium of the U.S. Exploring Expedition under the Command
  of Capt. Wilkes. Asclepias speciosa, Torr. [“Valley
  of the Sacramento, California”] (showy milkweed).
  Herbarium sheet.
  Courtesy of the National Museum of Natural History, Washington,
  D.C. (120D)

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Botanical Specimens

The specimens displayed above were obtained
on Frémont’s third expedition to survey from the central
Rockies, through the Great Salt Lake region, and to the Sierra
Nevada. Despite the turbulence of the Mexican War, Frémont
was able to reach California and obtain a few botanical specimens
to add to those collected on his previous two expeditions. Calycodemia
fremontii and Scutellaria antirrhinoides, on
display above, were both obtained in California.

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  [Frémont’s expedition to California, 1845–1847]. Calycodemia fremontii,
  Gray
  (Fremont’s western rosinweed).
  Herbarium sheet.
  Courtesy of the National Museum of Natural History, Washington,
  D.C. (129a)

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  [Frémont’s expedition to California, 1845–1847]. Scutellaria antirrhinoides
  var.
  californica, Gray (scullcap).
  Herbarium sheet.
  Courtesy of the National Museum of Natural History, Washington,
  D.C. (129b)

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Landmark Map of the West

In
1842 and again in 1843–1844, John C. Frémont led expeditions
to survey the route of the Oregon Trail from the Missouri
River to the Columbia River. On his return in 1844, Frémont
traveled into Mexican-held California and then headed east
completing a 6,500-mile circuit of the West. Charles Preuss,
the expedition’s cartographer, prepared this map, depicting
only geographic information collected during the expedition.
Originally published with Fremont’s 1845 report, the map
was the first reliable depiction of the emigrants’ route
through the West since it was based on scientific measurements
of latitude and longitude.

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[Charles Preuss (1803–1854)]
“Map
of an Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the year 1842 and to Oregon & North
California in the Years 1843-44 . . .” from John C. Frémont
(1813–1890). Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains. .
. . Washington: 1845. Hand-colored engraved map.
Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress (126)

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Heights
of Mountains

Frémont, himself more adventurer than
scientist, was accompanied by the German surveyor and cartographer
Charles Preuss, who not only created new surveys of the Great
Basin, central Oregon and western Nevada but also collected
plant and mineral specimens, and sketched landscapes. He
drew this profile of Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens with the
Columbia River from the trail along the Deschutes River and
recorded various “Hights [sic] of Mountains” in
his field notebook displayed above. Preuss and Frémont
were among the earliest Euro-Americans to view the Great
Salt Lake and Lake Tahoe.

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Charles Preuss (1803–1854).
Journal entry and sketch,
“Hights [sic] of Mountains,” 1832. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (122)

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Report of the Expedition

Considered one of the most influential accounts
of the American Far West, John C. Frémont’s Report of
his expeditions was published in more than two-dozen editions
in the first fifteen years. The popularity of his Report is
due in large part to the literary skill of his wife Jesse
(1824–1918), the daughter of expansionist Senator Thomas
Hart Benton. This view of the dividing ridge of the Sierras,
February 14, 1844, drawn shortly before Frémont’s
descent into the Sacramento Valley, documents the party’s
daring winter crossing guided by the mountaineer Kit Carson.

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E. Weber & Co., Baltimore.
“Pass in the Sierra Nevada of California”
in John C. Fremont. Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains
in the year 1842, and to Oregon and north California in the
years 1843-44. Senate Doc. 174.
Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1845. Page 1 .
Lithographic illustration. Rare Book and Special
Collections Division, Library of Congress (123)

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William Clark’s Certificates

John C. Frémont’s second exploratory
expedition to the northwest was barely underway when a group
of Sioux Indians arrived in camp with certificates given
them by William Clark. Theodore Talbot, a civilian and the
son of former U.S. Senator Isham Talbot of Kentucky, made
note of this occurrence in his journal. This second Frémont
expedition was designed to map an overland route to Oregon
through the South or Frémont Pass that would link
up to the work of the Charles Wilkes’ expedition on the Columbia
River and largely replace the Missouri River route of Lewis
and Clark.

Enlarge

Theodore Talbot (1825–1862).
Journal entry, August 5,
1843. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (125B)

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John C. Frémont for President

In 1856, capitalizing on his popularity, John
C. Frémont (1813–1890) ran as the newly formed Republican
party’s first presidential candidate. In this image, intended
to adorn a campaign banner or poster, Frémont is shown
on a mountain peak, planting the American flag. This scene
was intended as a reminder to the public of Frémont’s
famous exploring expeditions to the Rocky Mountains in 1842
and 1843. Frémont lost the election to James Buchanan
(1791–1868) by a margin of 174 to 114 electoral votes.

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Baker & Godwin. Col. Frémont planting
the American
standard on the Rocky Mountains [Proof for a large woodcut campaign
banner or poster].
New York: 1856.
Wood engraving. Prints and Photographs
Division, Library of Congress (128)

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Boundary Surveys

The boundaries of the Louisiana
Purchase had been only vaguely defined, but as Americans acquired
the remaining trans-Mississippi territories and learned of the
region’s natural resources, it became increasingly important to
establish precise boundaries between the United States, Mexico,
and Canada. The treaty that ended the Mexican War in 1848 stipulated
that a boundary commission survey and mark that contentious national
border. This commission worked from 1849 to 1857, eventually producing
a massive, three-volume report that included extensive geological,
botanical, and zoological data, as well as a series of detailed
topographic maps of the boundary region.

The northern boundary with British
possessions in Canada was marked along the 49th parallel
as the result of two separate surveys. The first boundary commission
was established in 1856 to survey and map the border with British
North America from the Pacific eastward to the Continental Divide.
That survey, completed in 1869, produced important journals, landscape
drawings, photographs, and maps but no published report. The survey
of the remainder of the northern boundary from the Continental
Divide eastward to the Lake of the Woods in Minnesota
was not begun until 1870, after the Act of Dominion that created
Canada as a separate country. With the establishment of the southwestern
and northwestern boundaries, the outer limits of the new American
western empire were finally established, producing today’s familiar
outline of the contiguous forty-eight states.

Surveying and Mapping the Southwestern Boundary

The
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, ending the Mexican War (1848),
defined but did not actually demarcate the 2,000-mile boundary
between the United States and Mexico. However, a joint commission
was formed in 1849 to carry out this task. A series of four
maps, which were issued separately, depict the boundary and
the adjacent topography. Shown here is the western portion
of the boundary running along the southern extent of present-day
California and Arizona.

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William H. Emory (1811–1887). Map
No. 4, Boundary between the United States and Mexico, Agreed
upon by the Joint Commission under the Treaties of Guadalupe
Hidalgo and December 30th, 1853. [Washington, D.C.: 1857].
Lithograph map. Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress (138)

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Report of the Mexican Boundary Commission

The actual surveying of the southwestern boundary
line and the preparation of the resulting reports and maps
were assigned to members of the Army Corps of Topographical
Engineers, primarily under the direction of William H. Emory.
The United States and Mexican Boundary Survey was completed
in 1855, but the published reports were not issued until
1859. The three-volumes included numerous landscape and ethnographic
illustrations, as well as accounts of the geology, botany,
and zoology along the surveyed line.

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William H. Emory (1811–1887). Report on the United States and Mexican Boundary Survey. 3
vols.
U.S. House Executive Documents.
Washington, D.C.: 1857–1859. Law Library, Library of Congress. (137a,b,c)

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Surveying and Mapping the Northwestern Boundary

The boundary of the western United States with
the British possessions in Canada was defined by two treaties,
with the 49th parallel designated in 1818 as the
boundary from the Great Lakes to the Continental Divide and
in 1846, the remaining segment from the Rocky Mountains to
the Puget Sound, also utilizing the 49th parallel.
The survey of the latter segment was not begun until 1856.
Shown here is a photo-lithographed copy of the first sheet
of that series, depicting the rugged terrain traversed by
the survey party in present-day southeastern British Columbia
and northwestern Montana.

Enlarge

Archibald Campbell (d. 1887). Detailed Maps of the North
West Boundary from Point Roberts to the Rocky Mountains between
the United States and the British Possessions under the Treaty
of June 15th, 1846. [Washington, D.C.:
ca. 1862].
Photo-lithograph maps. Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress (138D)

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Landscape Views along the Northwest Boundary

James Alden accompanied the U.S. survey team
as their official artist and produced a series of sixty-six
watercolor landscape views in the vicinity of the 49th parallel.
As these three views illustrate, this series of dramatic
drawings depicts the region’s rugged topography, the survey
camps, and the actual marking of the boundary with stone
monuments and the cutting of a swath of trees along the surveyed
line. These images were never converted to lithographic plates
because the results of the survey were not published.

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  James Madison Alden (1834–1922). Camp Mooyie .
  . .,
  1860.
  Watercolor.
  Courtesy of the National Archives, Washington, D.C. (138A)

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  James Madison Alden (1834–1922). Mooyie River Valley from
  Monument W. Side River Looking E. . . .,
  1859.
  Watercolor.
  Courtesy of the National Archives, Washington, D.C. (138B)

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  James Madison Alden (1834–1922). View from Monument at
  Summit Looking W. along 49th Parallel . . . 1859-60.
  Watercolor.
  Courtesy of the National Archives, Washington, D.C. (138C)

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Specimens from the Mexican Boundary Survey

The study of North American botany during the
mid-nineteenth century was done primarily under the aegis
of U.S. government expeditions. In this period the survey
teams, like the one that accompanied the Mexican Boundary
Survey, became more complex and included multiple specialists
in the fields of geology, mineralogy, zoology, and botany.
John Torrey (1796–1873), a renowned American botanist who
had been associated with the Long, Wilkes, and Frémont
expeditions, described the botanical specimens new to science
in “Botany of the Boundary,” included in the survey’s official
report.

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  Oenothera primiveris,
  A. Gray subsc. primiveris
  [Mexican Boundary Survey Collected Under the Direction of
  Major W. H. Emory, Commissioner Chiefly in the Rio Grande
  below Doñana by C. C. Parry, MD; J.M. Bigelow, MD;
  Mr. Charles Wright, and Mr. A. Schott].
  Herbarium sheet.
  Courtesy of the National Museum of Natural History, Washington,
  D.C. (136A)

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  Quercus oblongifolia,
  Torr.
  [Mexican Boundary Survey Collected Under the Direction of
  Major W. H. Emory, Commissioner Chiefly in the Rio Grande
  below Doñana by C. C. Parry, MD; J.M. Bigelow, MD;
  Mr. Charles Wright, and Mr. A. Schott].
  Herbarium sheet.
  Courtesy of the National Museum of Natural History, Washington,
  D.C. (136B)

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Epilogue—Transcontinental Railroad Surveys

The high watermark in mapping the
newly defined American empire before the Civil War was the Pacific
Railroad Surveys. During the 1830s and 1840s, modes of transportation
changed from rivers and canals to roads, turnpikes, and railroads
in the eastern half of the nation. Business and political leaders
envisioned the construction of a transcontinental railway linking
eastern urban and industrial centers with newly acquired western
lands. With the end of the Mexican War and the beginning of the
California Gold Rush the need to connect the new American West
with the East seemed even more imperative. After a long series
of debates, in 1853 Congress authorized the War Department and
the Corps of Topographical Engineers to conduct a comprehensive
survey to determine the most practical and economical route. Between
1853 and 1855 army engineers surveyed and mapped large portions
of the West and explored four transcontinental routes. The official
recommendation of a 32nd parallel route was met with
considerable opposition in Congress. The enduring legacy of the
Railroad Surveys came in 13 volumes of detailed, lavishly illustrated
reports. Perhaps most important, the comprehensive map drafted
by topographic engineer Lieutenant G.K. Warren completed the process
of cartographic definition begun half a century earlier by William
Clark.

The first transcontinental railroad,
completed after the Civil War, followed the 41st parallel,
a route that army engineers had not surveyed. In many ways the
Pacific Railroad Surveys marked the end of an era—the age in which
explorers sought a water route across the continent. Although locomotives
still needed water for steam power, no longer would explorers and
their patrons be tied to rivers as highways of empire. The first
transcontinental railroad was a river of steel that bound together
a re-united nation.

Discover!

Published Reports from the Pacific Railroad Surveys

The final reports of Pacific Railroad Surveys
were published in a comprehensive thirteen-volume set between
1855 and 1861. Together they provided the most important
contemporary source on the geography of the western U.S.
during the middle of the nineteenth century. The cost of
publication was over $1,000,000, more than twice the cost
of the surveys themselves. The volume on display documents
Isaac Stevens’ survey of the northern route along the 47th and
49th parallels. The plate shown in this case depicts
the customary distribution of goods and gifts to the Assiniboine
Indians at Fort Union in present-day western North Dakota.

Enlarge

U.S. War Department. Reports
of Explorations and Surveys, to Ascertain the Most Practicable
and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi
River to the Pacific Ocean. Made under the Direction of the
Secretary of War, in 1853-[6] . . . . 13
vols. Page 2 – Page
3 – Page 4.
Washington: A.O.P Nicholson, Printer, 1855–1861. Law Library and General
Collections, Library of Congress. (141a-l)

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Artist, Map Maker, and Interpreter

German-born Gustavus Sohon was one of eleven
artists employed by the Pacific Railroad Surveys. In 1852,
ten years after arriving in the U.S., he enlisted in the
army and was eventually assigned to Isaac Stevens’ surveying
party as an artist, explorer, cartographer, and interpreter
of Indian languages. Displayed here are two Sohon landscape
sketches made along the northern railroad route—a study
of Fort Vancouver, originally a Hudson’s Bay Company outpost
on the Columbia River, and a detailed pencil sketch of Couer
d’Alene Mission, now the oldest standing structure in Idaho.

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  Gustavus Sohon (1825–1903). Unfinished Study for Illustration
  in Gov. Stevens’
  Report—View of Fort Vancouver . Pencil drawing on tri-colored paper, ca.1853–1854. Geography and Map
  Division, Library of Congress (148)

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  Coeur-d-alène Mission,
  Established by the
  Jesuit Fathers in the Rocky Mountains in 1842.
  Pencil drawing, ca.1858. Geography and Map
  Division, Library of Congress (149)

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Endorsing a Transcontinental Railroad Route

Proponents of southern, central, and northern
transcontinental railroad routes battled to a stalemate in
the forums of public opinion and national politics. Preliminary
surveys were done on four proposed routes prior to the Civil
War, but rival companies and regional tensions over the expansion
of slavery prevented a final decision. With the South’s withdrawal
from the United States, Congress approved a central route,
not the one surveyed, from Omaha to Sacramento in 1862.On
display is a speech by Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton,
an ardent advocate for the central route with a terminus
in St. Louis.

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  Report on the Impractibility
  of Building a Railroad. Washington,
  D.C.: Cornelius Wendell Printer,
  1856.
  Pamphlet. Rare Book and Special
  Collections Division, Library of Congress (157)

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  Highway to the Pacific, Grand
  National Central Highway. Speech of Mr. Benton.
  Washington, D.C.: Towers, printer,
  December 16, 1850.
  Pamphlet. Rare Book and Special
  Collections Division, Library of Congress (158)

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Warren’s Map of the West

Lt.
G.K. Warren, a West Point graduate and a member of the Corps
of Topographical Engineers, produced the Pacific Railroad
Survey’s most important cartographic product—a large, composite
map of the territory west of the Mississippi River. This
remarkable map not only shows the routes of the transcontinental
railroad surveys but also provides a detailed summary of
prior explorations dating back to Lewis and Clark. Warren’s
map of the West was relatively complete with the delineation
of the region’s major drainage systems and mountain chains,
laying the groundwork for the construction of a national
network of railroads.

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G. K. Warren. Map
of the Territory of the United States from the Mississippi
to the Pacific Ocean, 1857 (or 8)
[Compilation of Transcontinental Railroad routes].
Engraved map [printed color]. Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress (143a,b)

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Compiling the Map

In compiling his map, G.K.Warren carefully evaluated
all the available data and incorporated the most reliable
information, particularly that based on scientific instrumentation
and careful analysis by past explorations, including those
led by Lewis and Clark, Pike, Long, Wilkes, Frémont,
and Emory. Warren provided a detailed record of his methodology
in a lengthy “Memoir,” in which he listed, for example, the
longitude of a variety of locations (the accuracy of which
had long been problematic) and identified the source for
each determination.

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J.M. Ives after Frances Flora Palmer. Across the Continent, “Westward
the
Course of Empire Takes Its Way.”
New York: Currier & Ives, ca. 1868.
Lithograph. Prints and Photographs
Division, Library of Congress (151)

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Politics, Profits, and the Transcontinental Railroad

In 1862, the U.S. Congress approved the central
route from Omaha to Sacramento for the construction of a
transcontinental railroad by the Union Pacific and Central
Pacific Railroad Companies. The government subsidized the
construction by providing huge land grants along the railroad
right-of- way. When completed, the two rail lines met at
Promontory on the north side of Great Salt Lake, celebrated
with the Golden Spike ceremony on May 10, 1869.

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  Union Pacific Railroad Company. Progress of Their Road.
  New York: Brown & Hewitt, Printer: 1867. Page 2. Rare Book and
  Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (155)

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  Go West over the Missouri Pacific,
  or Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, via St. Louis.
  Broadside. Page 2. Rare Book and Special
  Collections Division, Library of Congress (166)

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Union Pacific Railroad

A.J. Russell began his photographic career documenting
the railroad activities during the Civil War. In 1865, Russell
went West and photographed the construction of the track
beds and the laying of the rails for the Union Pacific Railroad.
In 1996, Canadian photographer Mark Ruwedel positioned his
camera in the same spot where Russell made his image of the
Green River Valley in Wyoming. The immutable Citadel Rock
dominates the background of both images as does the railroad
bridge on the right of the picture frame, but in Ruwedel’s
photograph houses and telephone poles now dot the middle
ground.

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  A.[ndrew] J.[oseph] Russell (1830–1902).
  “Citadel Rock—Green River Valley” in F. V.
  Hayden. Sun Pictures of Rocky Mountain Scenery. New York: Julius Bien,
  1870.
  Albumen silver print in album. Prints and Photographs
  Division, Library of Congress (168)

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  Mark Ruwedel (b. 1954). Union Pacific, after Russell [bridge at Green River, Wyoming], 1996.
  Gelatin silver print. Prints and Photographs
  Division, Library of Congress (169)

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“Path Finder” George B. McClellan

George McClellan, later to gain fame as a commander
of Union forces during the Civil War, was a member of Issac
Steven’s party, which surveyed the northernmost route along
the 47th and 49th parallels of the
Pacific Railroad Surveys. The sketch of McClellan as “Path
Finder” was made by J.F. Minter, a fellow engineer on the
survey, as the party explored the Cascades and the Columbia
River plateau in central Washington state. McClellan’s journal
of field notes, kept from May 20 through December 15, 1853,
is also on display.

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  George B. McClellan (1826–1885).
  Journal kept May 20-December 15, 1853.
  Journal entry,
  “Indian Names with Total Distance.” Page 2. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (145)

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  J. F. Minter.
  Portrait of “Path Finder,” 1853.
  [George B. McClellan].
  Pencil sketch in notebook.
  July 18-October 17, 1853. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (146)

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Although locomotives still needed water for steam power, no longer would explorers and their patrons be tied to rivers as highways of empire. The first transcontinental railroad, completed in May 1869, was a river of steel that bound together the nation reunited after the long, brutal Civil War.

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Horace Hull. “High water,”
Illinois, 1907 [railroad image].
Copyprint of gelatin silver print. Prints and Photographs
Division(170A)

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Mapping the West

It would take another fifty years after Lewis and Clark
to complete the cartographic image of the West we know today.
This presentation shows the routes of the various expeditions
from Lewis and Clark to the railroad surveys. Each path is
represented by a different color. The maps shown can be found
within this exhibition.

“We shall delineate with correctness the great arteries
of this great country: those who come after us will . . .
fill up the canvas we begin.”—Thomas Jefferson, 1805

Link to Flash presentation.
This presentation requires the Flash player. (external link)

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