When gaining evidence on place, culture and autonomy for this project, my main sources included secondary historical articles, modern town and park websites, primary sources from the founding of the town through the 20th century, various material objects, and finally my own personal tours, thoughts, and photography. I conducted the majority of my research from the Scott County Historical Society. While I was unable to visit the Dakota and Rice County historical societies for this deep map, the majority of my maps focused on the New Market and Elko town establishments and growth, both of which are located in Scott County. These sources consisted of primary sources from the 19th century newspaper articles and advertisements, but also secondary sources, such as research presentations and papers written by interested town members.
If I had more time, I would have liked to visit the Rice County society to explore the founding of the town of Webster and its history, as well as, visiting the Dakota County society to learn more about the historic Lutheran churches within the area. My initial ideas for mapping also included a map exploring the land and church establishment, so that I may understand how the landscape influenced settlement; however, after finding detailed information on the patterns of movement for those entering this quadrangle at the historical society, I decided to create my Settlement map instead.
For creating the maps, I primarily used ArcGIS mapping, story map builder, as well as, the georeferencer platform from the David Rumsey Historic Map Collection website. One of the biggest difficulties I had in creating the map I had idealized, was that of the economic development map. For this map, I hope to have an animated time slider map that also would also allow individual points and vector layers to be labeled with a more detailed description. This was found difficult, however, as a story map can be created with side panels, but then an animated map cannot be kept in time with the side panels information. Ideally I would have had an animated map, which was able to be paused and then explored further by clicking on individual points (ie. houses, businesses, etc.)
I would also like to give special thanks to those who helped me with my research and with learning the tools of ArcGIS software. Thank you to Heather Hoagland, Executive Director of the Scott County Historical Society, all other employees at the society, Austin Mason, Freja Olsen, Bryce Bern, JP Beaty and to the New Market township community.
