Texas Map 1858 State Print - Austin, San Antonio, Galveston

This map of Texas was drawn by G.W. Colton with text by Richard Swainson Fisher and published in 1858 as part of Colton's Illustrated Cabinet Atlas and Descriptive Geography, a pocket-sized atlas Colton issued state by state, its trim kept deliberately small so a full set of American maps could sit on a single shelf rather than a library table. The sheet is finished in the atlas's characteristic style, with each county washed in its own color, an ornamental floral border around the page, and the state's rivers and settlements rendered in fine engraved line work by Davies and Roberts and George Russell and Co. Published just over a decade after Texas joined the Union in 1845, the map reflects a state still consolidating its county government and its road networks across a vast and only partly settled territory.

Austin appears prominently as the state capital, already established as the seat of Texas government by the time this map was drawn. San Antonio is shown further south, a settlement with deep Spanish colonial roots that remained one of the state's principal towns. Galveston is marked on the Gulf coast, then Texas's busiest port and gateway for cotton and other goods moving in and out of the state. To the north, the map marks the edge of the Indian Territory, a boundary that defined the limit of organized Texas settlement in this period. Together these places show a state balancing an established seat of government against a coastline built for trade and a frontier still being pushed westward.

This Texas map appeals to anyone who traces their own or a client's roots back to the Republic-era or early statehood years, when Austin, San Antonio and Galveston anchored a state only recently added to the Union. This 1858 Colton edition offers a distinctly different reading of Texas than the more widely reproduced editions of the same decade, drawn instead from Colton's own smaller, richly illustrated cabinet atlas. It is available unframed in a full range of sizes, from a compact study print to a larger statement piece.