![Information Concerning the Terminus of the Railroad System of the Pacific Coast [with maps:] Map of California, Showing the Railroad System [and:] E.C. Sessions' Map of Oakland and Brooklyn By Grafton Tyler Brown & Co.](https://storage.googleapis.com/raremaps/img/small/83969.jpg)
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Rare promotional pamphlet, with maps of Oakland and of California's railroad systems, which provides descriptions of the various railroads and information on all aspects of the city of Oakland.
Includes two rare separately issued railroad maps of California and the Oakland area, published by G.T. Brown, California's first African-American lithographer.
The California map shows some topographical detail, but its main feature is the various railroads, actual and proposed, in California. Includes the Memphis & El Paso, Southern Pacific, Humboldt & Colorado, Central Pacific, Western Pacific, Napa Valley and California Pacific. Several proposed routes were never actually established. There are a number of early forts listed, several ghost towns and other ephemeral boom towns (Copperopolis, San Carlos, Knight's Ferry, Virginia City) and other interesting features. Ft. Crook, Ft. Reading, Ft. Mojave, Ft. Yuma are shown. Anaheim is named--one of the first references we have seen on a map. Engraved by F.C. Hafenrichter.
The Oakland map focuses on the towns of Oakland, Brooklyn and Alameda, along with railroad lines and areas reserved for the Central Pacific Rail Road, with a larger inset of a section of San Francisco Bay.
Pamphlet description: 48 pp. With 2 folding lithographed maps. (8vo) 22x14 cm (8¾x5½"), original printed wrappers. Maps are 15 x 12.5 (Caliifornia) and 2 x 19.5 (Oakland and Brooklyn).
We note only this example, the Heckrotte Copy, offered for sale in the past 35 years. The Streeter Copy sold for $55.00 in 1968.
Grafton Tyler Brown, perhaps the first African American artist to depict California and the Pacific Coast, was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, February 22, 1841. Before he was twenty, Brown moved to San Francisco and learned the art of lithography from C. C. Kuchel. In 1861 and again in 1864, Brown created the two earliest bird's eye views of Virginia City. At the age of twenty-six, he established his own firm, G.T. Brown & Co.
At San Francisco, and elsewhere in California, Brown produced skillfully illustrated bank notes, labels, and maps, and stock certificates for Wells Fargo, Levi Strauss and Co., and several mining companies. His significant lithographic production, The Illustrated History of San Mateo County (1878), featured seventy-two views of the county's communities and ranches. Brown traveled throughout Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, and British Columbia (where he settled in 1882), producing maps and illustrations, including many landscape paintings.
In 1893, Brown secured employment as a draftsman at the St. Paul, Minnesota office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Sometime during his St. Paul years he married Elberta Brown. Brown's work with the Corps of Engineers ended in December 1897, after which he worked in the civil engineering department of the city of St. Paul until 1910. He died on March 3, 1918, in Nicollet County, Minnesota, bringing to a close a rich and varied career as an artist and illustrator of the American West.
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