Map of the Public Surveys in California & Nevada to Accompany Report of Commissioner 1883

Cartographer: Compiled in the U. S. General Land Office, Department of the Interior; signed by J. A. Williamson, Commissioner, 1 October 1883

Year: 1866

This large chromolithographed sheet shows the extent of federal township surveys across California and Nevada three decades after the Gold Rush. Colored county outlines frame a dense checkerboard of completed sections in the fertile valleys, while vast blank blocks in the Sierra Crest, Mojave Desert, and Great Basin reveal land still unsurveyed in 1883. A reference key identifies land offices, completed and proposed railroads, and the locations of gold, silver, copper, quicksilver, coal, and iron mines. Dozens of confirmed Mexican and Spanish land grants are listed in the box at lower left, each keyed to its outline on the map. Shaded hachures depict mountain ranges and desert basins, and fine lines trace wagon roads that knit the public-land grid to isolated mining camps. The map provided lawmakers, settlers, and railroad agents with an authoritative snapshot of survey progress, mineral resources, and transportation corridors at the close of the Reconstruction era.