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Description

Scarce German Emigrant map of the United States, published in 1850.

The map focuses on the regions of interest to German emigrants, most of which are west of the Mississippi River.

The inset map focuses on the western United States, in the year following the famed California Gold Rush, including a large swath curiously labeled Gold Region in English. 

One of the more interesting features is the focus of the map on the location of Christian Missions in the regions then inhabited by Indians, most of which had been displaced from traditional lands east of the Mississippi River.

One of the more prominently labeled towns just off the Missouri River is the town of Austin, Iowa, in southwest Iowa.  Austin was an early settlement located on the banks of the Nishnabota River in Washington Township. The town existed from about 1844 through the early 1850's. It was an important mail center and distribution area for supplies. Austin was absorbed into Hamburg.  Austin was first located on the old Council Bluffs-St. Joseph Road, where it crossed the Nishnabotna River in Washington Township.  Daniel and Isaac Huntsacker established a ferry upstream near Austin in 1844 and a post office on the Nishnabotna on February 10, 1846, the furthest post office west on the Missouri at the time.