"Georeferencing is the process of assigning spatial coordinates to data that is spatial in nature, but has no explicit geographic coordinate system." (Yale University Library)

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A very lenghty process, georeferencing this small section of the 1891 handrawn map of the City of Tacoma took about an hour and a half just so things would line up correctly on the Tacoma shapefile (not pictured).

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The next step was to digitize the entirety of the rail roads so that they could be compared to current maps of Tacoma, along with a few recognizable landmarks in the area, including:

• the race track

• the City Dock

• the Smelter

• and more!

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