Mapping the travel diary by Laura Ingalls wilder

I just about finished mapping out the route the Ingalls-Wilder and Cooley family took from De Smet, South Dakota to Mansfield, Missouri. The trail they followed was so well traveled it became part of the interstate highways and state routes. Proof of that is actually shown in her reverse trip diary 40 years later in 1931. She mentions the highways used at the time. Some routes have become highways(freeways) and their numbers have changed. Route 71 is one of them. Route 59 is the old route 71 now.

You know in the beginning I tried to plot the course through Map-Quest. It kept telling me in no uncertain terms that I couldn't get there from here. That is, even though they could do it back in 1894 and again in 1931; in 2013 it was impossible. So I googled it on my iPhone. Now, I was plotted. But wait, that's not all.... I looked for other maps that had cities mentioned with the highways shown. I looked at AAA online downloadable maps with city and street markings. I looked at old maps too. No highways! No surprise there. I found maps of the four states through www.geology.com. The maps that came up were nice. Someone posted them from the site. I went to see if I could get a cleaner map... You have to PAY to even look at their maps; $20.00 for basic. The person who posted the four states unknowingly did me a favor. I printed them out and started comparing the hand drawn map to a GPS map. Lots of fun there. 

The first group of maps I printed today ended up being painted on by my dependent  and friends. Those were maps that the Ingalls Wilder museums had made. I would have to wait until after playtime with new paints and friends to print out my pages. And so here you find me describing what happened before.