Folding brochure (now flattened), with 3 strip-style maps on one side (each approx. 9x76 cm), another map (16.5x61.5 cm), along with text, time-tables, advertisements, etc., on the other side. Overall sheet size 39x80 cm (15¼x31½").
Rare promotional brochure for the recently completed transcontinental railroad, and connecting lines. OCLC/WorldCat lists only two examples, at the University of Wyoming and Yale, dated 1873 and 1876, respectively, but both of those are reversed, as it were, with the title "Chicago to San Francisco via the Burlington Route"; perhaps it is the present example that is reversed. The maps in the present brochure are copyrighted 1870. The three strip-style route maps on the one side, top to bottom, are: "Travelers own map of the Central Pacific Rail Road of California from the Pacific Ocean to the Great Salt Lake"; "The Travelers map Union Pacific Rail Road from Missouri River to the Great Salt Lake"; and "Travelers own map of the Chicago, Burlington and Missouri River Line from Chicago to Omaha." Again, these are similar to but not the same as the listings in OCLC. The map on the other side, spanning the entire United States except for portions of the north and south, is "Map of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R.R. and connections East and West." There is also a book by Hart with a similar title, dated 1870, 47, [1] pp., with folded maps and a color frontispiece. Warren Heckrotte compares the book to the present brochure, "The map in this publication has been re-engraved. There are a number of stylistic differences but few substantive differences with the map in the book. The only substantive one I note is that the map in the book shows an extension of the railroad from Oakland to Goat Island (Yerba Buena) that is not shown on this publication. The copyright on the book is given as entered in Washington. On this publication it is Illinois.
Provenance: Christie's, 11/6/97
References: Kibbey, The Railroad Photographs of Alfred A. Hart, Artist. This provides information about Hart and also reproduces part of this map from Hart's book, The traveller's own book A Panorama of Overland Travel from Chicago to San Francisco via the.... Howes, H256, identifies this book as the first transcontinental railroad guide, although Crofutt's guide to the transcontinental railroad was published in 1869. His description is Chic 1870 obl 16º 34 [10] 14 pls 3 maps.