1838 Bradford Map of Louisiana

This is Thomas Bradford's 1838 hand-colored map of Louisiana, which appeared in his Universal Illustrated Atlas.

A Closer Look

Highly detailed, each contemporary parish of Louisiana is illustrated, labeled, and shaded a different color to allow for easy differentiation. Numerous towns and villages are labeled, including Baton Rouge and New Orleans, along with canals and other waterways. The mighty Mississippi River winds its way down the map, forming part of the border between Louisiana and Mississippi, along with myriad other rivers and creeks.

As is the case with most of the maps in Bradford's Universal Illustrated Atlas, the nascent railroad network of the United States is illustrated. Several of the railroads seen here traveled very short routes; most were less than thirty miles. The Alexandria and Cheneyville Railroad, for example, stretched twenty-eight miles, while the Pontchartrain Railroad, illustrated but unlabeled here, connected the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans with Milneburg (later absorbed by New Orleans) on the lake's shore.

The West Feliciana Railroad

Among the railroads displayed here is the West Feliciana Railroad, between St. Francisville, Louisiana and Woodville, Mississippi. It was the first interstate and first standard gauge rail line in the country when it was chartered in 1831. When it was abandoned in 1978, the twenty-eight-mile line between Bayou Sara and Woodville was the oldest standard-gauge line in the nation. These short railroads were constructed to get cotton, the all-powerful export of the Antebellum South, from the plantations and mills to the Mississippi River, and were a welcome (if expensive) alternative to the poorly constructed roads.

The 'Nashville Railroad'

Not to be confused with the later Louisville and Nashville Railroad, the impressive-looking line extending northwards from New Orleans, labelled here as the 'Nashville Railroad,' is the New Orleans and Nashville Railroad, which was only chartered in 1837. Despite its grand ambitions, only a few miles of track on this line were ever built, thanks to the Panic of 1837. Moreover, in the years following the panic there was limited enthusiasm for financing such a line in New Orleans, as riverboats on the Mississippi River already provided a quick and reliable means of transportation to points north.

Publication History and Census

This map was engraved by George Boynton and published in the 1838 edition of Bradford's A Universal Illustrated Atlas.