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1950 Map of Brazil East

Name: 1950 Topographic Map of Brazil East
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1952
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1952

About this map

Strip Mines dominate the topography of this Clay County region at the start of the 1950s, illustrating the heavy industrial footprint of coal extraction on the Indiana landscape. The city of Brazil serves as the primary hub, with the National Road and the Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads creating a dense corridor of transportation and commerce through Harmony and Knightsville. This infrastructure supported a diverse economy beyond mining, evidenced by the cluster of Kilns near Carbon and the Granary in the county seat.

Rural life persists around the industrial works, marked by numerous small landmarks like Ebenezer Ch and the Van Buren Sch. The drainage of North Branch Otter Creek and Croys Creek carves through the undulating terrain, where local history is preserved in sites like Calcutta Cem and Poff Cem. This map effectively documents the transition from small-scale agrarian life to large-scale mechanized mining at mid-century.