Texas Map 1845 State Print - Austin, Houston, San Antonio

Sidney Morse and Samuel Breese, working in New York, published this map of Texas in 1845 as part of Morse's North American Atlas, issued by Harper & Brothers across nine illustrated parts sold for twenty-five cents apiece. Morse and Breese pioneered the cerographic wax-engraving process used to print the map, a technique cheaper than copper-plate engraving that let Harper's sell four full-color maps per part at a fraction of the price of comparable engraved sheets, and this sheet was entered for copyright in 1844, the same year the annexation of Texas was first put to Congress. Texas is shown here as an independent republic just months from joining the Union, its own decade of sovereignty as the Republic of Texas about to end with formal annexation in December 1845.

Austin anchors the map as the young republic's capital, a frontier town chosen in 1839 for its central position rather than any existing commercial weight. Houston appears inland from the Gulf, a rail and river town already growing into its role as a trade center for the cotton and cattle moving toward the coast. San Antonio marks the republic's old Spanish-colonial core, its missions and presidio predating Texan independence by more than a century. The Rio Grande traces the republic's disputed southern border with Mexico, and together the capital, the two older towns, and that unresolved boundary sketch a republic on the very eve of joining the United States.

For a Texas family with roots reaching back to the republic years, or a collector marking the exact months before annexation changed Texas forever, this sheet catches a moment that lasted less than a decade. The store also carries Texas from Cram's 1878 railroad-and-county edition, printed after statehood and the postwar cattle boom had reshaped the state entirely, along with Cram's later 1893 and 1883 printings; this 1845 Morse sheet is the only Texas map in the collection still showing it as an independent republic. It's printed unframed and available in a range of sizes to fit whatever wall it's headed for.