Colton's Nebraska, published 1874 (copyright 1873), finally omitted the nonexistent counties, correcting errors that had been in
circulation since 1867. Croft Collection.
maps don't show the six counties, but Colton maps were
so well known that other companies often copied their
information. The more the mistake was repeated, the more
legitimate the counties seemed. In 1870 the ghost counties
even fooled U.S. Census workers, who also followed the
Colton map by mistakenly placing Julesburg, Colorado, in
Nebraska.
Meanwhile, Colton's steel plate engraving process made it
difficult to erase information without starting over. The firm
didn't remove all six counties from their maps until 1873,
and some of the ghost counties appear on other companies'
maps as late as 1877.
For many years historians had no idea where the Colton
firm got its information, or if it was just making things up.
Then Croft discovered an obscure legislative bill in the
archives of the Nebraska State Historical Society. Passed
by the legislature in 1867, the bill organized the counties
just as shown on the Colton map. Somehow the company
had gotten word of it and went to press before learning
that the governor never signed the bill into law. But by
then it was too late. It took a decade to sort things out, and
nearly a century-and-a-half to unravel the mystery of why it
happened. ■
Brian Croft's article, "Mapping Nebraska, 1866-1871,"
appeared in the Winter 2014 issue of Nebraska History,
published by the Nebraska State Historical Society. Visit
the Nebraska State Historical Society's website at
Nebraskahistory.org
JULY 2016 • NEBRASKAland 13
