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1940 Map of Renault

Name: 1940 Topographic Map of Renault
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1955
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1955

About this map

The Mississippi River dominates this landscape, its western banks lined with dramatic Bluffs while the river itself is divided by large masses such as Fort Chartres Island, Beagles Island, and Turkey Island. These islands and the adjacent bottomlands defined the agrarian economy of the region before 1940, where small settlements like Prairie du Rocher and Boxtown thrived near the river's edge. The complex waterway is further complicated by natural features like Ames Towhead and Lee Island, which influenced navigation and local land ownership.

Inland, the mapping reveals a high density of rural institutions, particularly schools and churches that anchored the communities of Monroe Co and Randolph Co. From the Ruma Convent to a series of family-named schoolhouses like Maus School and Kania School, the map documents a social geography of the early twentieth century. Rail infrastructure, including the Mobile and Ohio and the St Louis and Southern, provided vital connections for towns like Redbud, Renault, and Maeystown to the broader Mississippi valley trade network.