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Description

Rare Houston-published antique map of Harris County, Texas, covering the Houston metropolitan area, published by Patrick Whitty, Houston's main surveyor at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th.

The map extends from Katy in the west to Cedar Bayou in the east and from Clear Lake in the south to Spring, Texas in the north.

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.

Whitty's first "Harris County... Scale 6000 Varas to the Inch" map was apparently originally issued in 1899. It was again issued in 1902, an example of which we handled in 2019. Whitty issued another map of Harris County in 1908, at the somewhat larger scale of 4500 varas to the inch.

Condition Description
Some edge wear, short repaired tears, and wear and splitting of a central vertical and horizontal fold. Surface soiling.
Patrick Whitty Biography

Parick "P." Whitty was Houston's longest-tenured City Surveyor during the 19th century. His biography is well-summarized in the following excerpt from the Archaeological & Historical Commission of the City of Houston:

The Whitty clan had initially put down its Houston roots a mere six years after the end of the Civil War when Edmond’s father, young civil engineer Patrick Whitty, migrated to Houston from the Canadian province of Newfoundland. By 1872, he had moved his small family to a home in the Brunner section of Houston and established the Texas and Houston Land Company. 13 Mr. Whitty was the first Civil Engineer employed by the City of Houston, beginning his municipal employment in the administration of Mayor I.C. Lord in 1875 where he served in that capacity for nine years. He maintained a private practice as well, advertising in the City Directories of Houston for a number of years.

“Patrick Whitty: Civil Engineer and Surveyor. Land Boundary questions a speciality. On hand and for sale: Maps of all counties in Texas. Also maps of the City of Houston and all city additions. Maps made by blue print process, photo-litho process or lithograph process. Correspondence solicited. Office: 117 1/2 Main, Corner Franklin Avenue. Houston, Texas.”

Patrick Whitty was instrumental in placing and mapping many of Houston’s streets, parks, and neighborhoods. His involvement in the burgeoning city is evident. He laid out the lots for the Brunner Addition, the Magnolia Addition, Riverside Park, Kingwood, and Clear Lake areas held by Humble Oil and Refining. In fact on today’s city maps, Whitty Street parallels Jensen Drive and the Eastex Freeway. Since the third decade of the nineteenth century, it has been common practice to name city streets for those individuals who were important to either the entire city or those particular areas. Such is the case with Nagle Street, Tierweister, Reinerman, Baldwin, and Andrews Streets, all named for engineers, city councilmen, or developers. Houston, Harris County, and Texas maps and plats of the period abound with the notation “P. Whitty."