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The atlases contained information on routes, hotels, gas stations, car repair shops, road conditions (including which roads to avoid when it is muddy and which roads had sharp turns). The ads in the book are beautiful and informative about car culture. Volume Ten is in the Archives and Special Collections. Library of Congress sponsors #ArchivesHashtagParty […]

Though the name never appeared on a map, the bend of the Missouri River south of Burbank, SD was called Negro Bend. The French named it after a local settlement of Black woodcutters who sold fuel wood to steamboats. On many maps, the region is called Kate Sweeney Bend, after a steamboat that sunk in […]

They are land ownership maps. The Archives and Special Collections has many cadastral maps, both as sheet maps and in atlases. Library records for most of these maps and atlases are in the library catalog and can be found using subject terms and key words such as cadastral, real property maps, landowner maps, land use, […]

-while at the time having a region called New South Wales in a book with a long title in the Chilson Collection in the Archives and Special Collections: Payne, John. A New and Complete System of Universal Geography; Describing Asia, Africa, Europe and America; with Their Subdivisions of Republics, States, Empires, and Kingdoms: The […]

– are maps intended primarily to influence opinions and beliefs rather than to communicate objective geographic information. They are meant to convey a message. Persuasive maps can be divided into intentional and unintentional. The Archives and Special Collections has a few persuasive maps. Most are dated from the homesteading period and are from land companies, […]

An outdoor theatre begun at the close of [WWI] by Clarence Lyon was formally inaugurated in June, 1920, with a commencement play. Located in a former wasteland back of the Science Hall [and between the Pardee Estee Laboratory and the National Music Museum] it emerged throughout the next ten years as a moderately attractive facility. […]

There is a new display outside of the Archives and Special Collections. It features a Black Hills map by Amos Bad Heart Bull and a Black Hills tourist map.

maps from: Illustrated Historical Atlas of Clay County, South Dakota : Including a Brief History of Clay County by E. Frank Peterson, 1901. Standard Atlas of Clay County, South Dakota : Including a Plat Book of the Villages, Cities and Townships of the County, Map of the State United States and World, Patrons Directory, Reference […]

The 36th Division Campaign Maps mystery has been solved. After speaking with many other archives and museums that had the same amount of information as the USD archives, I spoke with someone from the Texas Military Forces Museum. She was able to provide much more information than we were expecting, and it’s some interesting stuff! […]

The Archives and Special Collections contain some great materials, but we don’t always know the full story behind them. To provide some background, the maps below are from Frederick Cullen Burton’s collection of manuscripts, photos, documents, and poems. Frederick attended USD as a journalism major before joining the Royal Air Force in Canada to fight […]

This year, one of my personal projects is to find out more about Fort Vermillion. When did it exist and where? Here is what I know so far: Fort Vermillion was a trading post established by Pierre Chouteau, Jr., and Company along the Missouri River in the vicinity of what is now Vermillion, South Dakota. […]

The Archives and Special Collections has the Map of the Missouri River: from its mouth to Three Forks, Montana, published by the Missouri River Commission in 1892-1895 on eighty-four sheets plus nine index sheets. With this mapping expedition, “modern mapping had arrived, and the river was now mapped with precision from its mouth to Three […]

The Archives and Special Collections has a small collection of General Land Office maps. The Black Hills maps are supplemental plats, extension surveys, and dependent resurveys with dates between 1927 and 1932. They show mineral surveys, mine names, homestead entry surveys, homesteader names, forest reserves, sections with subdivisions, surveyor names and sometimes relief. The Cheyenne […]

The Archives and Special Collections has a collection of 386 maps that we believe are associated with the Great Depression federal relief programs. All the maps are identified to a town or county in South Dakota. Most indicate the type of project they are associated with, such as street surfacing. Most have dates from 1939 […]

The Archives and Special Collections invites you to check out our new display featuring pieces from the Mahoney Music Collection. Items now on display in front of the Archives include: Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1st edition The Strad, Vol. 1 Portraits of Musical Celebrities, from Steinway & Sons (showing a testimonial from […]

This cartobibliography consists of eighteenth and nineteenth century maps housed in the Archives and Special Collections Department of the University Libraries at the University of South Dakota. The maps selected focus on the Northern Great Plains with special emphasis on South Dakota. Also included are select maps of Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Iowa, and Nebraska. Entries […]

I recently attended the South Dakota State Historical Society 2013 History Conference. There were many great papers, but the one that stands out in my mind used maps plus a diary as primary resources. Graham Callaway talked about G.K. Warren’s 1856 maps of the Missouri River. These maps were only available at the National Archives, […]

Atlas photographique de la lune by Loewy and Puiseux, a French atlas of the moon, is the largest book in the Archives and Special Collections. It is 83 cm by 63 cm (33 in. by 25 in.). This is a big book. The images of the moon were photographed through the Observatory of Paris’ telescope […]

The earliest atlas of Dakota Territory in the Chilson Collection is Andreas’ Historical Atlas of Dakota published in 1884. Andreas’ atlas has county maps showing physical and cultural features, though the majority of the atlas is general thematic histories, county histories, biographies, and business descriptions. During the late 19th century, many state and county land ownership […]

This section from a 1915 South Dakota map shows Cedar Pass Scenic Highway that went from the Oacoma area to Interior. In the 1920s and before, many roads in the United States received names. They were often associated with a booster group which collected dues and published trail guides and newsletters. Please contact us if you […]