Gone But Not Forgotten in San Antonio! - Part II (Denton: mayor, buildings)

[Dwangle]

I looked like you were viewing it from a hill top or maybe from a balloon

[Nix54]

I have an old reproduced map of SA and here are portions of it.

It measures approximately 3ft by 4 ft.

This map was given to me by an old union printer in El Paso. It is a reproduction of A Bird's Eye View of San Antonio, looking North East, 1886.

These are camera shots I took this morning of some areas of the map. Not very good, but you can tell more or less the area of the Alamo, Main Plaza & Military Plaza.

The map I have has the G, H & SA train station located on Austin Street. The map has 93 key locations.

Is this what you are are referring to or are you referring to an older map?

If anyone is interested I can find out how to professionally reproduce it and have it laminated.

[gy2020]

Here are some pics from the City Map Book. This shows downtown and "WestSide of the Creek"--the red light district.

















To see the rest click here:

City Map Book :: CityMapBook008.jpg picture by jh1882 - Photobucket

[Dwangle]

Originally Posted by Nix54

Attachment 59841

Attachment 59842

I have an old reproduced map of SA and here are portions of it.

It measures approximately 3ft by 4 ft.

This map was given to me by an old union printer in El Paso. It is a reproduction of A Bird's Eye View of San Antonio, looking North East, 1886.

These are camera shots I took this morning of some areas of the map. Not very good, but you can tell more or less the area of the Alamo, Main Plaza & Military Plaza.

The map I have has the G, H & SA train station located on Austin Street. The map has 93 key locations.

Is this what you are are referring to or are you referring to an older map?

If anyone is interested I can find out how to professionally reproduce it and have it laminated.

This is sort of what is was like except it was a pen and ink drawing--like drafting. It was drawn like a big picture with Fort Sam to the right, San Fernando to the left, the Flour Mill to the bottom, and Main and San Pedro fading off the top of the page. It wasn't exactly scale but it had houses and roads. The roads were labeled and the major buildings and parts of the city were rendered well enough to identify--even now! It was not a complicated drawing. It didn't look like anyplace I would recognize until I noticed the unmistakable shape of the Alamo and realized what it was.

[gy2020]

If any of you GBNF'ers have an interest I created a new thread in which I posted pictures from the 1940 Jeff Annual.

https://www.city-data.com/forum/san-a...onticello.html

[BudB]

Originally Posted by gy2020

Here are some pics from the City Map Book. This shows downtown and "WestSide of the Creek"--the red light district.]

Glad to see the Sanborn Fire insurance map pages and others too. Just looked at Sanborn pages for my childhood Cooper St. block last week at the ITC LIbrary and found a feature that I'd begun to think was only an imaginary place. But it was real and is seen on one the 1935 Sanborn map that archivist Tom Shelton showed me. The Koch Birdseye map Nix54 & Dwangle showed us were done for most cities in America in the late 19th century and sometimes more than once. Austin has two versions from different angles done in separate years and they can be very useful. Meanwhile, Tom also showed me an undated Nic Tengg map of SA showing streetcar and trolley lines. Best guess is the map was published in the late teens or early 1920s as Tengg was in business as a bookseller, stationer, postcard producer and photo collector for over fifty years in his W. Commerce St. shop from about 1875 until his passing in 1927.
Thanks to all.

[BudB]

Here's another part of the large Nic Tengg map at ITC which is about 36 X 48 inches in size. Perhaps most interesting is that many colorful names for neighborhoods and areas now lost to time and memory. Several are familiar but others are not and never were at least to me.

[Willsatx]

Thanks for the maps guy, really cool.

[tclhd]

Originally Posted by Dwangle

I looked like you were viewing it from a hill top or maybe from a balloon

Was it like any on this site?

Texas Cities Historical Maps - Perry-Castañeda Map Collection - UT Library Online

I believe I learned of this map collection from a post on GBNF.

[BudB]

Here's what historian Mike Cochran says about the Koch Birds Eye map maker;
"After the Civil War, a peculiar sort of mania swept the nation employing the latest technology of perspective map making. Many former army engineers and cartographers made their living by traveling the country and producing by subscription, meticulously detailed artistic renderings of the various communities as they might be seen from the air. Before the days of air travel, these "Bird's Eye" lithographs were quite a popular novelty and were produced in thousands of communities across the land.

One such cartographer, German born Augustus Koch, had served in the Union Army during the Civil War as a clerk and draughtsman in the Engineers Office in St. Louis. Although his English was poor, he was later commissioned as an officer and assigned to one of the Black regiments serving in Mississippi where he drew maps for the advancing Union forces. By 1865 he is thought to have contracted malaria and at 25, was discharged from the army. Little is known about his activities for several years but by 1868 he appears to have settled into the profession of itinerant Bird's Eye cartographer employing those skills acquired during his military service. His first signed Bird's Eye lithographs date from 1868 when he published maps of Cedar Falls, Vinton, and Waterloo, Iowa. At that point his career seemed to take off and in rapid succession, maps by Koch were produced in every section of the country. In 1870 he produced 5 maps in Utah, Wyoming and California.

In 1873 Koch produced the first of his Texas work by etching maps for Austin, San Antonio and Brenham. On a return trip to Texas in 1883, Koch produced the Bird's Eye Map of Denton. Little is known about the circumstances of the publication of this map but some things may be inferred from other sources. We know that Koch published the map himself and that underwriters received special mention in the display. The banks of the town were all shown in greater detail, evidence of their financial participation in the project.

As to the accuracy of the map, Koch was well regarded for his faithful representations. Writing of his work in Lincoln, Nebraska, one writer says of Koch, "Mr. Koch has with him his sketch which shows every street, block, railroad track, switch and turn-table, every bridge, tree and barn, and in fact every object that would strike the eye of a man up a little ways in a balloon from a point a little northwest of the B. & M. depot. The architectural style, dimensions, and position of each building is faithfully preserved in the sketch..." An engineering map of Denton from 1882 that shows the positions of the streets and buildings of the town, corroborates Koch's vision and was no doubt used as a source for bird's eye map. There are few structures still standing that are on the old map but they include the Union Pacific Freight Depot, on East Hickory, the Scripture Building (Randall Boyd's law office), at 123 N. Elm and the the May House Bed and Breakfast at 609 W. Oak St. One interesting discrepancy in the map in it's depiction of the old Robert E. Lee School which was on the site of the First United Methodist Church. When Koch was producing his map, the school was not yet completed and Koch had to use his imagination to finish it out. Although similar, Koch's version is not at all what was built.

In all, Koch produced more that 112 Bird's Eye maps across the country and 21 in the state of Texas. His career spanned 30 years and his last known map was produced in Montana in 1898. We are fortunate to have this excellent example of the cartographic arts of our town for with it we are afforded a window on the past that gives a real feeling for the Denton of the 1880's. The only known example of the original Koch map of Denton is in the Emily Fowler Public Library. The Historical Society of Denton County has produced a reprint of this rare map and it is available to the public by calling the Society at 940-387-0995." I was hoping Mike told how Koch did the maps but he doesn't really so we must assume that Mr. K was a very able cartographer and draftsman with a great imagination.