1854 Land Survey Map of California (wall map size)

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Title:    Map of Public Surveys in California to accompany Report of the Surveyor General, 1854.

Description:    This magnificent 1854 map is one of the rarest and most sought after early Land Survey maps of California. Covers the entire state with very good detail in the San Francisco Bay area, along the Central Valley, and in the Sierra Madres. Otherwise, includes a wealth of detail indicating the extant of what we knew about Californian geography at the time. Notes the massive Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater lake in North America, practically a sea, which has since been drained for irrigation purposes. Prepared by P.S. Duval & Company Steam Lithograph Press of Philadelphia, PA for inclusion with the 1854 issue of the Report of the Surveyor General.

Date:    1854 (dated)

Source:    Report of the Surveyor General, (1854 issue).

References:    Phillips (America) p. 186.

Cartographer:    The General Land Office, created in 1812, was an independent agency charged with the administration and sale of public lands of the western territories of the United States under the Preemption Act of 1841 and the Homestead Act of 1862. During a time of frenetic energy and rapid westward expansion, the Land Office oversaw the surveying, platting, mapping and eventually the sale of much of the Western United States and Florida. The structural layout of the western United States that we see today, and many of their district and county divisions, are direct result of the early surveying work of the General Land Office. More importantly, as a branch of the Federal Government in Washington D.C. and the only agency able to legally sell and administer public lands in the western territories of the United States, the General Land Office played a pivotal role in consolidating power away from the original states and into the hand of the centralized federal government. The General Land Office was absorbed into the Department of Interior in 1849 and in 1946 merged with the United States Grazing Service to become the Bureau of Land Management. Today the Bureau of Land Management administers the roughly 246 million acres of public land remaining under federal ownership. Click here for a list of rare maps from The General Land Office.

Size:   Printed area measures 47 x 20.25 inches (119.38 x 51.435 centimeters)

Condition:    Very good condition. Light toning and verso reinforcement on original fold lines.

Code:   California-landsurvey-1854 (Necessary for phone inquiries: 646-320-8650)