"Principal Cities" of US in 1857

[jon daly]

I recommend The Devil in the White City.

[abefroman329]

Dead Wake was surprisingly good.

In the Garden of Beasts was surprisingly boring.

[briantroutman]

I really don't get Sacramento getting an entry in the table, but not San Francisco.  S.F. was far more important, gold notwithstanding.

My guess is that it's because this is a railroad timetable, and San Francisco, despite its long history as the West Coast's primary metropolitan center, has never been a significant railroading town due to its peninsular isolation.

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

Concerning the history of standard time (and usage of time tables), I'll direct you to this book.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1374860.Time_Lord_

First half of book is fascinating, 2nd half drags.

[jon daly]

Dead Wake was surprisingly good.

In the Garden of Beasts was surprisingly boring.

Are these also Larson books? I borrowed DitWC from my wife when she had to read it for grad school.

[abefroman329]

Dead Wake was surprisingly good.

In the Garden of Beasts was surprisingly boring.

Are these also Larson books? I borrowed DitWC from my wife when she had to read it for grad school.

Yes.  Dead Wake is about the sinking of the Lusitania (I have a dark sense of humor, so I read it when we sailed on the Queen Mary 2 from New York to England last fall).  In the Garden of Beasts is about the US ambassador to Germany during the early days of the Third Reich and the experiences he and his family had while living in Berlin during that time.

[kkt]

I really don't get Sacramento getting an entry in the table, but not San Francisco.  S.F. was far more important, gold notwithstanding.

My guess is that it's because this is a railroad timetable, and San Francisco, despite its long history as the West Coast's primary metropolitan center, has never been a significant railroading town due to its peninsular isolation.

True.  I'd have thought they'd have Oakland, though.  The end of the line.

[MikeTheActuary]

True.  I'd have thought they'd have Oakland, though.  The end of the line.

There wasn't a line in Oakland in 1857.

[MNHighwayMan]

Minneapolis went by St. Anthony Falls then?

Actually, if I read Wikipedia correctly, St. Anthony Falls was a separate town on the east side of the Mississippi River (upstream of St. Paul) that later merged with Minneapolis.

Technically it was just St. Anthony. St. Anthony Falls refers only to the waterfall itself, not the former, now-merged city. And of course, all of this is not to be confused by the modern city, adjacent to Minneapolis to the northeast, called St. Anthony.

[jon daly]

True.  I'd have thought they'd have Oakland, though.  The end of the line.

Indeed. There wasn't even a telegraph link yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_transcontinental_telegraph

Are there more historical threads like this?

There wasn't a line in Oakland in 1857.

[MikeTheActuary]

Indeed. There wasn't even a telegraph link yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_transcontinental_telegraph

Note that I know there were railroads and telegraphs in California in 1857, even though they weren't connected to those in the eastern US.  However, the fact that Oakland apparently didn't even have a connection to California's railroad system was a little bit of a surprise.

Saint Anthony also didn't have a railroad in 1857 (Minneapolis wasn't connected until 1868).

So...the choice of cities in the list seems...interesting.   Maybe the author was anticipating rail lines and their terminii?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Prairie du Chien, WI is interesting because it was not particularly large and had just gotten on the railroad in 1857. The width of the Mississippi proved to be a challenge in connecting the railroad further into Iowa.

[tchafe1978]

Prairie du Chien may hyave been included because I believe at the time it was the site of an important fort, Ft. Crawford.

[kkt]

True.  I'd have thought they'd have Oakland, though.  The end of the line.

Indeed. There wasn't even a telegraph link yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_transcontinental_telegraph

Are there more historical threads like this?

There wasn't a line in Oakland in 1857.

I was interested to find this article:

The history of the telegraph in California
Alice L. Bates

Annual Publication of the Historical Society of Southern California
Vol. 9, No. 3 (1914), pp. 181-187

which indicates that there was telegraph between several cities in California by October 1853, including San Francisco, San Jose, Stockton, Sacramento, and Marysville.  However the link across the intermountain west required Congress to help fund it and they didn't get really motivated until the war.  That link was completed in October 1861.

[westerninterloper]

Vincennes, Indiana had maybe 3500 people in 1857, and was never a major industrial or commercial center (except perhaps before the American Revolution). It wasn't even close to being one of the largest 100 cities in the US in 1850.

Louisville-burb New Albany (8,181, #84), Indianapolis (8,091, #87) and the Ohio River port of Madison (8,012, #90) were the largest cities in Indiana in 1850.

[jon daly]

Dead Wake was surprisingly good.

In the Garden of Beasts was surprisingly boring.

Are these also Larson books? I borrowed DitWC from my wife when she had to read it for grad school.

Yes.  Dead Wake is about the sinking of the Lusitania (I have a dark sense of humor, so I read it when we sailed on the Queen Mary 2 from New York to England last fall).  In the Garden of Beasts is about the US ambassador to Germany during the early days of the Third Reich and the experiences he and his family had while living in Berlin during that time.

My worlds are colliding. A daily newsletter that I get linked a 25 year old Atlantic piece by Larson yesterday:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1993/01/the-story-of-a-gun/303531/

WARNING: It's very long and about a mass shooter and gun laws.