1896 Map of Wartburg

About this map

The Wartburg Plateau dominates this late-19th-century landscape, where the deeply incised valleys of the Obed River and Clear Creek carve through the Cumberland uplift. The settlement pattern reflects the era's utopian and industrial experiments, most notably the English colony at Rugby and the German-founded county seat of Wartburg. Transportation is anchored by the Cincinnati New Orleans and Texas railroad, which skirts the eastern ridges through Glenmary and Elgin (Rugby Road), while long-established river crossings like Leatherwood Ford and Silcott Ford provide vital connections for isolated plateau communities. From the timber-rich hollows of Price Hollow to the high elevations of Bird Mountain, the map documents a transitional period where subsistence mountain farming met the expanding reach of the industrial rail economy.