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About the Map

The View from Kansas, 1896, reflects the emergence of maps into popular and commercial culture in the nineteenth century. They became vehicles for advertising and displaying cultural and economic well-being. County maps, for example, the staple product of several map publishing houses, displayed rural landownership, local topography, artistic' views of individual land holdings, and lists of businesses and historical material. ¹

Map publishing houses sold subscriptions to these map books to local businesses and families. These subscriptions "recorded the establishment of individual families on the land, expressed their pride of ownership, and asserted their role in the pioneer history of the region. Such maps, usually packaged as atlases, also mirrored a resident's standing in the community and advertised his assets, particularly his property holdings.”²

Subscription advertisements frequently combined illustrations of idealized, orderly farm landscapes and portraits of the family with plat maps of the property location. The KPC&G railroad map advertised the extension and perpetuation of these community values.

As railroad development crossed the country preceding the growth of towns along its route, railroads spent fortunes advertising to lure settlers to fill up the lands along their lines. “The railroads printed lithographed pictures, maps, flowery descriptions of the productivity of the country and glowing accounts of those who had succeeded...no pains were spared to depict the favorable side, although no mention was made of the hardships and more unfortunate aspects of the country.”³

As The View from Kansas City illustrates, Arthur Stilwell, founder of the Kansas City Pittsburg & Gulf Railroad adopted these familiar advertising techniques. Stilwell completed his railroad linking Kansas City to the Gulf of Mexico. As he pushed his line southward, his advertising, personal philanthropy and ability to obtain backers created new towns with hotels, businesses and homes stimulating the transport of goods and people along the route

Stilwell's unorthodox vision and promotional fervor extended to town planning. A street plan of Port Arthur, Texas, the ultimate destination of the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf departs from traditional city plan built on the traditional grid—a pattern of survey lines running due north and south, east and west established by the Land Survey of 1785. The Port Arthur town plan includes winding roads, radial city streets, separate recreation areas and parks.

Stilwell lost control of his railroad in the early 1900s. The line eventually became the Kansas City Southern which continues today and local histories of towns along its route such as Mena, Arkansas, and Stilwell, Oklahoma acknowledge Stilwell as their founder. During his life, Stilwell built 2,300 miles of railroad and more than 45 towns.

2. Ibid.

3. Dick, Everett, The Sod-House Frontier. (Lincoln, Nebraska: Johnsen Publishing Company, 1954), p. 187.

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