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1915 Map of Crystal City

Name: 1915 Topographic Map of Crystal City
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1939
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1939

About this map

The Mississippi River corridor dominates this region at a time when river traffic and rail infrastructure defined local commerce. Major rail lines, including the St. Louis Iron Mountain and Southern RR and the Mississippi River and Bonne Terre RR, connect industrial hubs like Crystal City and Festus to the broader regional network. The rugged terrain away from the river is dotted with isolated rural settlements such as Hematite, Danby, and Valles Mines, many of which were supported by local mineral extraction and timber.

Educational life is captured through a dense distribution of country schoolhouses, including the Telegraph School, Rugley School, and Stony Point School. To the east, the Illinois side of the river shows the flat bottomlands of Mitchie and the settlement of Harrisonville, separated from the Missouri bluffs by Calico Island and Harlow Island. This landscape reflects the early 20th-century transition from a frontier economy to a more established industrial and agrarian society.