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Samuel L. Clemens aka Mark Twain was a life-long traveler and this site is devoted to his travels, the places he visited and modes of transportation. The underlying theme is his relationship with the onset of industrialism in the United States and indeed the rest of the world.
A significant part of this project are railroads. When I began, Google Earth had an overlay of railway lines since removed. They also had a topographic overlay, also removed. Many of the lines found within this site were derived from these sources. Since then, kml files provided by the University of Nebraska's Digital History Project, Railroads and the Making of Modern America became an important source if information. These, however, need to used with caution as they are derivative and quite a few are unidentified as to the name of the railway. I have also relied on the USGS digital topographic maps available from the website, topoView. Unfortunately these are generally of a much more recent date than are Mark Twain's travels. Railroads are notorious for their brief durations, being absorbed by subsequent railroads, not to mention realignments. Precise mapping is not a priority for this project but I do wish to be as accurate as possible.
I would like to remark that this site does not use AI for any of its content. I can't vouch for links, though. As of this writing I have compiled two books available on Amazon. The first is an attempt at creating a narrative of his 1861 journey across North America. Much of the material is, however, from Richard F. Burton's book The City of the Saints. The second book is again a narrative of his journey across North America in 1895, a prelude to his book Following the Equator. Again, Twain did not write much about this journey but James B. Pond, his manager on this portion of his lecture tour, did keep a journal.
This project would not have been possible without the resources of Wikipedia.
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. (KV)