DESCRIPTION: Large-format manuscript, pen and ink engineering map of the proposed Kush-Ta-Ka Southern Railway, documenting plans to connect Alaska's Bering River coal district with tidewater at Controller Bay. In 1909 Alaska was the District of Alaska, a U.S. possession purchased from Russia in 1867. Inset small-scale context map at upper right.
Prepared by engineer J. L. McPherson circa 1909, the map records an unrealized transportation scheme from a period when access to Alaska's mineral resources was becoming a national political issue.
The proposed alignment crosses a complex drainage system around Bering River and Bering Lake, with numbered points along the route and additional lines identifying alternate and preliminary locations. Campbell River, branching waterways, islands, and a headquarters site provide geographical and operational context. At a scale of one inch to 2,000 feet, the sheet illustrates the river crossings and difficult terrain confronting railway planners.
In 1909, as William Howard Taft succeeded Theodore Roosevelt as president, competing railway promoters sought routes linking Alaska's coal deposits to coastal shipping. The Kush-Ta-Ka Southern filed its preliminary right-of-way application on August 21 of that year. Meanwhile, disputed coal claims in the Bering River district helped fuel the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy, bringing questions of conservation, private development, and control of public resources into national debate.
The railway produced no major construction, leaving this map as a record of the industrial future envisioned for the district. Its significance lies in documenting the practical transportation ambitions behind Alaska's coal-development controversy, rather than an established operating railway.
PUBLICATION DATE: 1909
GEOGRAPHIC AREA: United States
BODY OF WATER: Bering River and Bering Lake
CONDITION: Good.
Rolled pen and ink trace on surveyor's cloth.
COLORING: N/A
ENGRAVER:
SIZE:
" x
"
ITEM PHYSICAL LOCATION:
PRICE: $1200
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