The Archives and Special Collections has the Map of the Missouri River: from its mouth to Three Forks, Montana, published by the Missouri River Commission in 1892-1895 on eighty-four sheets plus nine index sheets. With this mapping expedition, “modern mapping had arrived, and the river was now mapped with precision from its mouth to Three Forks.” “Later mapping made only minute improvements on these maps, principally in recording its ever-changing channel and in documenting the destruction of the river as a free-flowing natural stream in the post-World War II period” (Wood 1984).
The Archives and Special Collections doesn’t have all the sheets in this set. We own sheets XXVII-XLVI, which encompass the South Dakota stretch of the Missouri River, and we have accompanying index sheets IV and V.
Our set does not include the legend for this map, but I found it in the Nebraska Memories digital library. Indicated are shoreline triangulation stations (secondary), saw mills, cemeteries, roads, fences, levees, benches, orchards, forests (deciduous), forests (evergreen), bushes, willows, bench marks, churches, section corners, railways, county & reservation lines, state lines, dikes, cultivated lands, sand bars, grass, lakes & marshes, and bluffs.
Call number in our library for this map is 1472 M5 1895 U545.
Image above is sheet XXIX, showing the Vermillion SD area.
Information from:
Nebraska Memories. “Map of the Missouri River: from its mouth to Three Forks, Montana.” Accessed September 2, 2015. http://memories.nebraska.gov/cdm/ref/collection/opl/id/1284.
Wood, W. Raymond. “Mapping the Missouri River through the Great Plains, 1673-1895.” Great Plains Quarterly, 1984, 29-42.
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