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A separately-issued, detailed and extremely rare promotional map of Harris County Texas, published at a transitional moment in the region’s history.

Detailed lithographed separate map of Harris County, published in Houston by P. Whitty - Houston's main surveyor at the end of the 19th century.

Beginning of Houston as a Texas Powerhouse

The map was published in the immediate aftermath of two epochal events in the history of southeast Texas: the catastrophic Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the discovery of oil at Spindletop in 1901, which launched the Texas oil industry generally and that of Trinity-Galveston Bay specifically.  Those events helped propel Houston far ahead of Galveston as the most important entrepot in the region, a role on which it would build continually thereafter.

Though at the time of publication Houston was a relatively small city on the banks of Buffalo Bayou, in encompassing all of Harris County the map depicts what would grow into the present-day metropolis. The scale is at 6000 varas to the inch, a vara being 33 1/3 inches. The map is particularly useful for depicting property boundaries and landowners throughout the county, as well as the many rail lines that converged on the city and facilitated its rapid growth. The small inset map of the United States highlights Houston’s proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and the rail network tying it to the rest of the country. A table at bottom center drives home the promotional message by laying out some eye-catching statistics, including among other things the volume of cotton passing through the city, its dominant export before the oil boom of the early 20th century.

A table at bottom center elaborates Houston's demographic and economic vitals:

Taxable wealth                                        $27,534,271
Population                                                        71,156
Bank clearances 1901                          $359,297,237
6 National and (Private banks) capital      $3,500,000
Lines of railroad centering at Houston                    15
Cotton received this season to Jany.1st      1,532,195
Cotton shipped through Buffalo Bayou to
the Gulf this seasons 1901                             398,205

Editions

The map was first issued in 1899, the only apparent change to this 1902 version being the date (The only example I find of the first state for $1792.50 at Heritage Auctions on March 3, 2012.) Whitty issued a second map of Harris County in 1908, at the somewhat larger scale of 4500 varas to the inch.