The Missouri River in 1894

By Jeffery Robichaud

I always enjoy receiving cool links to data and information that I can use in my work especially older maps. As you can tell from the name of our blog title, The Big Blue Thread, we are always interested in information about the Missouri River. A friend of mine passed on to me a website run by the United States Geological Survey that has wonderful maps created in the late 1800’s by the Missouri River Commission. According to the Corps of Engineers,

Congress created the Missouri River Commission (MRC) in, or shortly after, 1884, to accomplish a continuous, progressive development of the river. The commission consisted of a five-member organization which was charged to make surveys and devise plans to “maintain a channel and depth of water … sufficient for … commerce” and to carry out plans of improvement the commission deemed necessary. The commission went out of existence in 1902.

The maps go from the mouth of the Missouri to the headwaters. You can view these online, or download them in either Raster or Vector formats. If you live along the Mighty Mo give it a go! I combined them in Arc GIS with some current aerial imagery and showed my kids what the river area looked like over a hundred years ago. We quickly noticed a bunch more “character” in the river in the form of points, cutbanks, and islands. Time changes all things and it is fantastic comparing a map from 100 years ago with what we can easily see today.

About the Author: Jeffery Robichaud is a second generation EPA scientist who has worked for the Agency since 1998. He currently serves as Deputy Director of EPA Region 7’s Environmental Services Division. According to the Missouri River Commission Maps, he lives along a ridge that used to be in a forest.

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