Samuel Augustus Mitchell, County Map of Texas, 1860

Mitchell’s “County Map of Texas” effectively documents the progress of settlement in the state in the mid early nineteenth century, with roads and towns concentrated to the east, while much of the west remains unsurveyed. Counties are delineated by color, creating a lively graphic quality. Highly detailed information includes stagecoach roads, existing and proposed railroads, towns, and rivers. This is the first edition and first state of this map initially published in 1860, the year Samuel Augustus Mitchell retired, and continued to be published until 1893 by his son Samuel Augustus Mitchell, Jr.

Some topographic features are included here recalling some early Texan history. Llano Escatado or Staked Plain situated on this map in the region known as “Young Territory” is a high plateau region that got its name from New Mexicans who blanketed the present West Texas areas with expeditions from as early as 1786 to 1875. The name Staked Plain was said to have derived from the necessity to stake horses on a treeless Llano. Horsehead Crossing along the Rio Pecos (Pecos River) was the most noted river crossing. It received its name because of the horse and mule skeletons on either side of the crossing. It was said to have derived from the Native Americans who rode horses north from Chihuahua, Mexico and would drive them so hard to reach water the horses and ultimately died from contaminated water. This crossing was also part of early surveying in Texas from practical wagon routes to El Paso to surveying the potential boundary line between Mexico and the United States of America. It was also well known to frontiersmen and used by emigrants as early as 1850.

Samuel Augustus Mitchell founded one of the United States’ leading map publishing firms of the nineteenth century. The country’s growing population, expansion west, and a general increase of interest in geography, created a burgeoning market for the map and travel guide business. Mitchell, who had worked as a teacher, moved to Philadelphia around 1830 with the original intention of improving the standard of geography textbooks.
Mitchell’s first publication was A New American Atlas, issued in 1831. In 1832, the Mitchell company issued a Traveller’s Guide Through the United States, A Map of the Roads, Distances, Steam Boat & Canal Routes &c. This publication proved so successful that it was issued a number of times. The company also followed with a series of “Tourist Pocket Maps” beginning in 1834.

Refs.: Ristow, American Maps and Mapmakers; Rumsey, no. 0565.020; Schwartz and Ehrenberg, The Mapping of America; Tooley’s.; Texas Historical Association, The Handbook of Texas, Vol. 1 and 2.