Historical look at Railroads in the West

Introduction  This is a review of the railroads and cities as they developed between  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  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  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  Historical small scale railroad information by year  The digital railroad files from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) se/2008/ se/2008/  The historical timeline information associated with this project came from different sources ory ory

Techniques Used  Railroad information 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  US Cities information 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 Person Geodatabase Generation of seven map products depicting the growth of railroads and cities

Analysis for 1840  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  Between 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  Between 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  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  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  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  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  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