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1959 Map of Kirkwood

Name: 1959 Topographic Map of Kirkwood
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1960
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1960

About this map

The borderlands of Crawford and Cherokee counties reveal an industrial landscape transitioning from deep mining to surface operations in the late 1950s. Extensive Strip Mines dominate the northern terrain around Kirkwood, Atlas, and Kramer, where the St Louis San Francisco railroad network once supported heavy extractive activity. Southward, the map shifts into the more agrarian township of Pleasant View, where the landscape is defined by the winding course of East Cow Creek and Cow Creek.

Evidence of established rural communities remains visible through a dense network of one-room schoolhouses and country churches, including Stilwell Sch, Neutral Sch, and Council Corner Ch. The presence of a Drive-in Theater near the northern boundary marks a mid-century cultural landmark amidst the more traditional sites like Crocker Cem. This survey preserves the exact locations of these community hubs and industrial scars before further land reclamation and rural consolidation altered the region.