Map showing the several Lines of R.R. Leading from the Lakes to the Mississippi River together with the route surveyed by the St. C. & L.S. R.R. Co.

Early planning for a railroad between Lake Superior and the St. Croix River.

This rare and interesting map of the Great Lakes region captures the railroad mania gripping the United States during the mid-19th century. Though it is undated and production details are minimal, the image presents a surveyed route for a connection between the St. Croix River, west of St. Paul, and Lake Superior near Fond du Lac. The line through northern Wisconsin would allow regional agricultural products, timber, and minerals direct access to the Great Lakes and avoid the crowded competition downstate. Numerous other lines are shown between New York and the Mississippi River, though there is no effort made to distinguish between those then operational and merely proposed!

The map is signed H. Seifert, Milwaukee in the upper right corner. Henry Seifert printed a number of early Wisconsin maps from the late 1840s through the Civil War. Though undated, the only example of this map I can find, at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book Library, is credited to 1852. No copies were listed in WorldCat as of May 2025. The amount of railroad track in the U.S. skyrocketed between 1850 to 1860, increasing from nearly 9,000 miles to over 30,000 miles by the end of the decade.

Sources: Yale University; National Park Service; Wisconsin Historical Society; Chequamegon History;