Railroad Map of the Central Part of California, and Part of Nevada

Cartographer: Compiled and lithographed by C. Bielawski, J. D. Hoffmann, and A. Poett, 1865 (copied June 12 1866)

Year: 1865

This large outline map tracks every completed and projected rail line between the Pacific coast and the Sierra Nevada a year before the first transcontinental rails met in Nevada. A single thin red line marks the only operating segment—Sacramento to Folsom—while a web of fine black lines shows proposed extensions north to Marysville and east through Donner Pass toward Virginia City. Township grids appear only where federal surveys were finished, leaving vast blank spaces over the Sierra and Great Basin. Rivers, wagon roads, mining towns, and stage stations dot the landscape, helping investors judge traffic potential along each surveyed right-of-way. Precise latitude–longitude ticks and a diagonal magnetic-north line aid engineers in plotting grades across the rugged topography. For researchers, the sheet captures California’s railroad ambitions on the eve of the Central Pacific’s push over the mountains, documenting routes that were fiercely debated yet never fully built.