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Lithograph, 31" x 43.5", plus margins. Overprinted in red, with spot and outline color by hand. A large promotional map of the short-lived Virginia, Kentucky & Ohio Railroad. In 1878, the Virginia General Assembly chartered the Virginia, Kentucky & Ohio Railroad Co., which was licensed to create a route from Pulaski County, Virginia to the Kentucky rail line through Giles, Bland, Tazewell, and Buchanan Counties. The charter additionally granted permission to create a branch line passing through Russell and Wise Counties to the "Pound Gap" on the Kentucky line; and another line from Kimberling Creek in Bland County and on through Smyth County, VA. Showing all of Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, and Delaware, this map spans from eastern Kentucky and Tennessee in the west to Maryland, New Jersey and New York City in the east, and from North Carolina in the south to Ohio and Pennsylvania in the north. Depicted in great detail are towns, roads, railroads, rivers, canals, creeks, mountains, etc., the whole surrounded by an attractive foliated border. Overprinting in red highlights the rail network, cities, towns, and natural resources of western Virginia and eastern Kentucky (coal, iron, salt, and timber). Blue hand-coloring shows the proposed routes of the Virginia, Kentucky & Ohio R.R., and dashed lines extend the routes into Kentucky and on to the Ohio River as well as westward into Tennessee in the direction of the Mississippi. By April 1880, construction on the railroad had begun in Lee County, Kentucky. However, by 1882, the Virginia, Kentucky & Ohio R.R. consolidated with the Richmond and Southwestern Railway Co. to form the Richmond and Louisville Railway Co. At least one earlier issue of this map features superimposed text boxes with information on the advantages of the planned routes, with a less developed rail network. OCLC records only six copies. REFERENCES: Phillips, Maps of America, p. 995; Modelski, Railroad Maps of the United States, #603. CONDITION: Good overall, repairs to corners and edges. Seller Inventory # 3780
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