Historical look at
Railroads in the West
Introduction
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This is a review of the railroads and cities as
they developed between 1840-1950
This project is part of the Fairfax Public
County Schools (FPCS) middle school social
study activity regarding integrated social
studies/GIS lessons on industrialization in the
United States
Goals
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Develop a dataset and products to help middle
school teachers and students in Fairfax
County, Virginia learn about the expansion of
the railroads in the West
Incorporate into the above dataset the growth
of the population as the cities spread across
the West
Objectives
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Use GIS to map out the railroads as they
made their way across the West
Use GIS to map the cities as they developed
during the same timeframe
Highlight the historical information associated
with the expansion of the railroads and cities
across the West
Principal Data Sources
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Historical small scale railroad information by year
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The digital railroad files from the Bureau of Transportation
Statistics (BTS)
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http://www.cprr.org/Museum/RR_Development.html
http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_atlas_databa
se/2008/
The historical timeline information associated with this
project came from different sources
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http://www.sdrm.org/history/timeline/
http://www.kipnotes.com/Railroads.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_railway_hist
ory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Pacific
Techniques Used
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Railroad information
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US Cities information
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Extraction of datasets from Bureau of Transportation Statistics (by region)
Re-projected the data to USA Contiguous Albers Equal Area Conic
Modifying the datasets to coincide with the yearly historical information
Digitized shapefiles reflective of historic data for small areas of coverage
Digitized missing sections of railway
Append the regions into single railroad file
Extraction of cities designated by the Census Bureau from the Cities_dtl file
(into small subset files)
Create fields to add the specific yearly population data to each city
Append the sets of city files together
Entire Project
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Person Geodatabase
Generation of seven map products depicting the growth of railroads and cities
Analysis for 1840
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Prior to 1840 most of the railroad building
was being done in the East
Building of railroads started in Louisiana near
New Orleans and Baton Rouge
Biggest obstacle for railroad expansion was
the Mississippi River
Only 4 cities were reported by Census Bureau
Analysis for 1850
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Between 1840-1850 development was still
mostly in the East
The majority of the change on the map was
the increase in the number of cities to 38. This
growth displays why Railroads were needed
Analysis for 1860
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Between 1830-1860 was enormous railway building as
railroads began to replaced canals as the primary mode of
transportation. This was the beginning for railway
development west of the Mississippi River
1853: U.S. Congress authorized Transcontinental Railroad
Survey
1855: First railroad bridge across the Mississippi River is
complete between Rock Island IL and Davenport IA
1857: U.S. Congress authorizes overland mail delivery
service via Railroads
Railroad building continued on the East side of the map and
started near San Francisco CA
Number is cities grew to 87
Analysis for 1870
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1862: The Pacific Railway Act was signed by
President Abraham Lincoln which authorized
construction of the first Transcontinental Railroad
with the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads
1869: The Transcontinental Railroad was completed
as the golden stake was driven in at Promontory
Summit UT on 10 May. This event made is possible
to travel to the Pacific Ocean
Development of railways in the Mississippi and
Missouri Valleys was notable during this time period
The expansion of cities was up to 137
Analysis for 1880
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1874: Southern Pacific tracks reach Bakersfield CA
1876: First train service into Los Angeles from San Francisco
1877: Southern Pacific crossed the Colorado River at Yuma,
AZ
A southern transcontinental route was almost complete as
well as building up railroads across Kansas, Nebraska, Texas
and California.
Every state and territory had railway transportation, this had
powerful influence upon immigration, agriculture and
industrial growth throughout the country
The expansion of the cities was up to 218
Analysis for 1890
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1881: Southern tracks reach El Paso, TX
1881: Southern Pacific meets the Texas and Pacific at Sierra
Blanca completing the second Transcontinental Railroad
1883: The Northern Pacific drove the last spike at
Independence Creek MT
1883: Southern Pacific completed it’s Transcontinental
“Sunset Route” from New Orleans to California
1885: Southern Pacific is completed
There is much development of railroads on the east side of
the map. Starting to work railways in the northern states and
several more railroads extended to the Pacific Ocean
The expansion of cities was up to 285
Analysis for 1950
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1893: Great Northern is completed in Cascade
Mountains of Washington state
1919: Golden spike driven in Carrizo Gorge marking
completion of the San Diego and Arizona Railroads
Railroads handle commercial passengers, freight
business, U.S mail, and most of the commercial
express traffic for the nation
The expansion of cities as reported by the Census
Bureau is 427
Geodatabase used for this project
Future Work
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Add the US Territory information as another
layer associated with each of the years
depicted. Will incorporate the timeframe for
when the states joined the United States
Incorporate the city population totals into map
to show the growth through time
Conclusion