Land-Classification Map of Parts of Eastern California and Western Nevada (U.S. Geographical Surveys West of the 100th Meridian, Sheet 23 E/23 W)

Cartographer: Compiled from the 1876 – 1877 field surveys directed by 1st Lieut. George M. Wheeler, Corps of Engineers, U.S. Army; lithographed by Julius Bien & Co., New York, 1878

Year: 1877

This large-scale sheet uses four pastel tints to classify federal lands along the Sierra–Great Basin divide: cultivable (buff), timber (green), grazing (light yellow), and desert or saline (white). Finely engraved contours and shadowed slopes render the snow-capped Sierra Nevada on the west and the parallel ranks of the White, Inyo, and Wassuk ranges on the east. Mono Lake, Owens Lake, and the alkali flats of Long Valley appear starkly uncolored, signaling “land of no value.” Wagon roads thread the Walker, Carson, and Owens river corridors, while faint township grids mark the only areas yet surveyed for homestead entry. Mining camps such as Bodie, Aurora, and Lundy are labeled, but the dominant impression is of rugged topography and sparse settlement. Created for Congress to guide railroad grants and water-development policy, the map remains one of the most detailed 19th-century portrayals of California’s eastern escarpment and adjacent Nevada basins.