Texas Maps 1871-1892
The Amon Carter Museum has a web feature called “Texas Bird’s-Eye Views” that features some really nice maps of various Texas towns from 1871-1892. While they are behind a Flash-based map viewer at the website, many of them are also on Wikimedia Commons.
After the Civil War there was an explosion in panoramic or bird’s-eye view city maps. The techniques and technology were sufficiently advanced to produce beautiful works of art. There is a detailed article on Bird’s Eye View map phenomenon at the Anon Carter site.
Below are some samples:
Austin, 1873.
Austin, 1887.
Eagle Pass, 1887.
Fort Worth, 1876.
Fort Worth, 1886.
Fort Worth, 1891.
McKinney, 1876.
All told there are 60 maps on the Amon Carter site, and many are also available on Wikimedia Commons and these are only for Texas towns. I’m sure with some digging we can find more primary source maps of Old West towns, in fact you can count on it.
As a native Texan, and also in light of my setting The Eerie Exploits of Ranger Co. X, I say THANK YOU for this archive!
You’re quite welcome. Thanks for the first comment and saunter in any time. I have quite a few posts in the works, so I’m hoping to keep this going for a while.