PSA: Stop trusting the big lake on the 1857 Mitchell map
I spent 6 months trying to line up a trail from Fort Laramie to the Great Salt Lake on my 1857 Mitchell map before noticing the lake was drawn 200 miles too far east. A guy at the Denver map fair finally pointed out that Mitchell copied the whole western section from an 1849 Fremont survey that had a known longitude error. So if your emigrant road suddenly bends weird, check the source map's survey year first. Anyone else got a cheat sheet for spotting copied errors on these mid-1800s plates?