Washington: GPO, 1846. 29th Congress 1st Session, Senate 161. 10pp, folding map. Pages browned, map with a stain in the margin and minor loss on one fold. Sewn, laid in a custom case. Asa Whitney (1797-1872) was a merchant and railroad promoter. His modest proposal was that he would build a railroad himself if only the government would present him a grant of land sixty miles wide from Lake Michigan to the Pacific - some 92,160,000 acres by his calculation - the sale of which would pay the cost of construction and any land left over would be his as a reward for his good work. Oddly, the government didn't go for it despite his intensive promotional campaign. The folding map (9.5 by 16 inches) shows the continental United States with Whitney's proposed rail line leaving Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, heading due west in an almost straight line through South Park in the Rockies where it abruptly ends. Item #26336

Price: $250.00