[MAP] - Lot 91

[MAP] GEOLOGICAL SURVEY (U.S.). Proposed Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina-Tennessee. U.S. Geological Survey, 1926. 610 x 750 mm. Printed in color. A fine copy. U.S. government mapping in the Smoky Mountains (USGS). In 1926, the same year that Congressional approval of the park concept allowed private fundraising to begin, the USGS produced a remarkable topographic map of the "Proposed Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina-Tennessee" at a scale of 1:125,000. It was based on surveys carried out for earlier maps. The map shows the topography of the region by means of contour lines spaced two hundred feet apart. The proposed park area is outlined in red as "Proposed Great Smoky Mountains National Park, North Carolina-Tennessee". The U.S. Geological Survey also published a series of large-scale maps of the proposed park between 1926 and 1931, including an index map. At a scale of 1:24,000, with twenty-foot contour lines, these maps were extremely detailed and were probably used both for planning purposes and to record the complex land acquisitions required to create the park. This set of maps was produced at a very unusual scale for the time. It wasn't until 1950 that official USGS map production adopted this scale for 7.5-minute topographic quadrangles, replacing earlier, smaller-scale maps. The need for these maps was undoubtedly prompted by the many obstacles to the creation of a park in the Great Smoky Mountains, obstacles that persisted even after the plan had been approved by Congress. In addition to opposition from some local residents and entrenched mining and logging interests, there was the larger question of funding. Unlike the western national parks, which were created on public land, the land for this park was to be purchased from thousands of landowners holding over 6,600 parcels. The original plan called for all funds to be raised independently of the federal government. In 1931, two years before the federal government contributed the final $2 million needed to complete the land purchases, the USGS published another map of the park at a scale of 1:125,000. Although this edition is not part of the cartographic collections of the Library of Congress, it was reprinted without revision in 1978, as seen here. A map based on surveys carried out between 1927 and 1931 was published by the USGS in two sheets in 1934, at a scale of 1:62,500. The set of maps produced by the USGS between 1926 and 1931 at a scale of 1:24,000 is closely linked to the later maps of the areas surrounding the park, and completed the quadrangular coverage of the park. The data from this set of maps, representing the interior of the park, were eventually integrated with those from the base maps representing the outer areas, to form the first complete topographic maps of the park and its surroundings. Provenance: Société Géologique de France.