Googlebooks contains a scan of an 1873 Congressional Act “Revising and embodying all the Laws authorizing Post-Roads, in force on the first day of December, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-three.” To be frank, I stumbled upon it while looking for something totally unrelated. That’s often how the best things are found.
The title pages have been reproduced as a part of this blog post. The specific publication also included legislation related to the District of Columbia.
The page numbering starts over again for the legislation related to the Post-Roads (a direct link to the first page is here).
The Act begins with bridges over the Mississippi River…
And continues with a list of post roads listed alphabetically by state. The page reproduced here (48) lists roads for part of Illinois.
Even a few post offices at individual residences are listed.
Too bad there are no maps, but this was a really interesting find.
Give it a look for those areas where you have an interest.
2 Responses
Thanks for posting this. I was able to find the areas in my state of Mississippi. As an aside, postal registers for the state are on microfilm at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. These registers include names of postmasters and other interesting information.
Glad you liked it. That’s good to know about Mississippi. It’s possible there are registers for other states as well.