Louisiana in 1879 - New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lafayette

Rand, McNally & Company published this map of Louisiana in 1879 for their Business Atlas, the fourth edition of the Chicago firm's first national atlas, built for merchants and shippers tracking the country's fast-expanding rail system. Rendered in outline color by county with named railroad lines running throughout, the map documents Louisiana more than a decade after the Civil War, a period of continued economic rebuilding centered on cotton, sugar, and the port trade flowing through New Orleans. By 1879 the state's rail network had grown substantially from its antebellum footprint, gradually supplementing the river routes that had long dominated Louisiana commerce. By 1879, Rand McNally's Business Atlas had grown into one of the most widely distributed commercial references in the country, prized for its careful, frequently updated county and rail detail.

New Orleans anchors the map as Louisiana's largest city and the dominant port on the entire Gulf coast, its position at the mouth of the Mississippi giving it control over trade from across the whole river valley. Baton Rouge remains the state capital along the river upstream from New Orleans, while Shreveport, in the state's northwest corner, had grown into an important regional rail and river hub. Lafayette, in the heart of Acadiana, anchors the state's distinctive southwestern parishes. Named railroad lines trace new routes tying these regions together in the postwar decades.

This 1879 Rand McNally sheet documents Louisiana's rail-building decades, a useful counterpart to the 1845 Meyer atlas map also offered in this collection, which shows the state still organized primarily around river and steamboat commerce a generation earlier. Together the two chart Louisiana's shift from a water-based to a rail-based economy. This piece is a fitting gift for a New Orleans or Louisiana native, or a collector of Rand McNally's early state atlases. It ships unframed and is available in multiple sizes.