Posted in Maps, USD Archives, USD buildings on October 4, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Enjoy finding the changes in the University of South Dakota campus from 1960 to 2016. These maps are from the USD Undergraduate Catalogs and are as close to 10 years apart as possible. Most of the graduate and undergraduate USD catalogs can be viewed at the Archives and Special Collections.
USD campus maps from 1901 and 1912 are on a July 31, 2019 blog post.
Posted in Maps, Recently Received Collection, Richardson Collection on July 15, 2022| Leave a Comment »
The Nancy Carlsen Research Papers show her passion for local history, maps, and the Missouri River. The collection is mostly about Clay County cemeteries and the Clay County sites on the National Register of Historic Places. It also includes material about Clay County Preservation Commission, Spirit Mound Trust, Spirit Mound Cemetery Restoration, and River Honoring.
Her papers contain many maps that Nancy created. Enjoy these portions of two of the Clay County SD maps. The first is a shaded relief map emphasizing the Missouri River Valley and the Vermillion River Valley. The second is a color topographic map highlighting Clay County cemeteries.
Posted in Chilson Collection, Maps on April 25, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Historian Everett Sterling wrote in Vermillion Story (1959) that there was “a 1910 map preserved in the City Building, on which every residence is shown and identified …” Does anyone know where the map is now?
Sterling’s Vermillion Story is in the Chilson Collection. Other histories about Vermillion and Clay County SD are listed on the Archives and Special Collections web site.
Posted in Chilson Collection, Maps on April 7, 2022| Leave a Comment »
If ghost towns do not need to have standing structures, then Clay County has at least one – Lodi. Bloomingdale may turn out to be another one, but further research is needed to determine if Bloomingdale was a town. Both are now private land and used for farming.
Peterson’s atlas can be viewed in the Archives and Special Collections or the Digital Library of South Dakota. The atlas has a map of Lodi plus maps of other towns or villages in Clay County.
The county has a few more towns or villages that no longer exist, but they were moved rather than abandoned. Lincoln relocated and became Meckling.
Please contact us if you know of other abandoned towns in Clay County, SD.
Posted in Maps, Richardson Collection on December 27, 2021| 1 Comment »
Darrow, A. N., et al. Map of the Missouri River : from Its Mouth to Three Forks, Montana. Missouri River Commission, 1892-1895.
Archives and Special Collections doesn’t have all the maps in this set, but we do have the indexes and maps for South Dakota under call number 1472 M5 1895 U545. This map shows Vermillion, South Dakota and area after the flood of 1881 moved the Missouri River away from the town.
Posted in Chilson Collection, Maps, Richardson Collection, William J. Janklow Gubernatorial Papers on November 29, 2021| 3 Comments »
The mound appears on this 1856 map as Little Spirits Hill.
Spirit Mound was described by local Indigenous people to the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804. Twenty years ago in 2001, it was replanted with native grasses and joined the South Dakota state park system as Spirit Mound Historic Prairie. In 2010, a geologic survey determined the mound to be a rock-cored drumlin created by a glacier. Check out the websites for Spirit Mound Trust or the Spirit Mound Historic Prairie for more information.
Both maps can be viewed in the Archives and Special Collections.
Information about the addition of Spirit Mound Historic Prairie to the South Dakota state park system can be found in the William J. Janklow papers at the Archives and Special Collections.
Geologic survey by Cody Miller, Origin and Erosion of Spirit Mound, http://www.spiritmound.com/PDF/Miller_spirit_mound.pdf (accessed November 8, 2021).
Posted in Chilson Collection, Maps, Richardson Collection on November 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Eastern part of SD was in Iowa Territory 1838–1846.
Eastern part of SD was in Minnesota Territory 1849–1858.
Western part of SD was in Nebraska Territory 1854–1861.
SD was entirely in Dakota Territory 1861-1889. The original boundaries of Dakota Territory are shown in the first map below. The final boundaries are shown in the second map below.
All of these maps can be viewed at the Archives and Special Collections.
Prior to Iowa Territory, the area that would become South Dakota was Native American land, Louisiana Territory, Missouri Territory, Michigan Territory and Wisconsin Territory.
Posted in Chilson Collection, Maps on September 13, 2021| Leave a Comment »
It was south and west of Yankton, Dakota Territory. This 1872 map can be viewed in the Archives and Special Collections.
Map of Military Department of the Platte, Nebraska. Washington, D.C.: Engineer Dept., U.S. Army (Washington D.C. : N. Peters, Photo-lithographer), 1872. CHILSON COLLECTION MAP 4190 W728 1872
Posted in Chilson Collection, Maps on July 19, 2021| 1 Comment »
Map of the Ceded Part of Dakota Territory: Showing Also Portions of Minnesota, Iowa & Nebraska, Smith, B. M., et al, 1861. Archives and Special Collection has this map in the Chilson Collection with the call number 4130 S64 1861.
The inset map in the upper left corner shows the entire Dakota Territory and its boundaries.
Posted in Chilson Collection, Maps on March 22, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Standard Atlas of Clay County, South Dakota (1912) by George. A. Ogle & Co. can now be viewed on the Digital Library of South Dakota. |
… Ogle’s atlas maps. … emphasize clarity of cadastral delineation, a concern for the graphical accuracy of a civil engineer, a minimal approach to property depiction (boundaries, roads, water courses, hand-inscribed owner’s names – and little else), and professional trim, such as a colour tint for the map area and a page border composed of a chain of miniature globes.
Conzen, Michael P. “The County Landownership Map in America Its Commercial Development and Social Transformation 1814-1939.” Imago Mundi 36 (1984): 9-31. P. 24. Accessed on JSTOR March 17, 2021.
If you are interested in the history of cadastral maps in the United States and atlases and how their styles have changed through time, I recommend the articles and books by Michael Conzen, a geographer at the University of Chicago.
Cadastral maps are helpful to historians, genealogists, and those tracing landowners for legal reasons. Though cadastral maps (particularly Ogel’s atlases) are often reliable, the ultimate source of past and present ownership information is the county courthouse.
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