Transcontinental Railroad Routes To San Francisco in 1846!

Scarce map of Texas, Upper California, Mexico and the Southwestern United States, prepared for Gilliam's Travels over the Table Lands and Cordilleras of Mexico during the Years 1843 and 44.

Texas is treated as a Republic (hence the reference in the title to Texas AND the United States).

Albert Gilliam's map traces his travels through the region, from San Francisco to Southern California, across the Colorado River to the mining regions of Sonora, etc., in 1843 and 1844. Coming prior to Fremont and the California Gold Rush, his proposal for a straight line pair of railroad lines from San Francisco to Napolian (at the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Arkansas River), and a second line to New Orleans, was both forward thinking and completely devoid of geographical understanding of the several largely unexplored mountain ranges that were seamlessly crossed by Gilliam's ambitious depiction.

The map is perhaps most fascinating for its bold conception of the prospect for the railroad, a testimony to Gilliam's ambition and the lack of knowledge of the route traversed. While Gilliam's route appears laughable in modern times, it was one of the first maps to attempt to depict the concept of a railroad line from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.