AUSTIN / THE MAP ARCHIVE
Austin's 1839 City Plan
Austin begins here as a working plan: a measured grid between Shoal Creek, Waller Creek and the Colorado River, with Capitol Square already commanding the center line. The city was still new enough that the map had to name the government spaces before streets and buildings could make them familiar.
Explore the mapTHE MAP AT A GLANCE
A closer look
at 1839.
Dates, details and the people behind the drawing.
- Map date
- 1839
TSLAC identifies the plan as an 1839 plat of Austin.
- Cartographer
- L. J. Pilie
The TSLAC record lists Pilie as cartographer; the map text also says it was surveyed by L. J. Pilie and Charles Schoolfield.
- Map type
- Plat
The record describes it as a plat showing streets, lots, blocks, public buildings, Capitol Square, creeks and public squares.
- Town frame
- Downtown grid
The city grid is bounded by West Avenue, East Avenue, North Avenue and the Colorado River, with the creeks shaping the west and east sides.
1839 · Austin
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LOOK CLOSER / EDITORIAL NOTES
Find it on the map.
Capitol Square is the anchor
The large Capitol Square sits above the river on the Congress Avenue axis. It is not a casual open block; the map gives the new capital a ceremonial center before much of the town existed on the ground.
A city inside natural edges
Shoal Creek, Waller Creek and the Colorado River do the real border work. The street grid is regular, but the creeks remind you that the planned capital still had to fit a river landscape.
Public uses were drawn early
The plat labels public squares, churches, government offices, an armory, a penitentiary, a court house and jail. Those words show what the map assigned to the plan; they are not proof that every feature was already built.
AUSTIN / HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Austin's First Downtown Grid
The 1839 plan shows Austin at the moment it was being turned from the Waterloo area into the Republic of Texas capital. TSHA records that surveyors L. J. Pilie and Charles Schoolfield laid out the town under Edwin Waller's direction. They selected a 640-acre site along the Colorado River between Waller Creek and Shoal Creek, then organized it as a fourteen-block-square grid bisected by Congress Avenue and extending north to Capitol Square.
The useful thing is how much the map names before the city could make those places familiar. Capitol Square dominates the center line, public squares are spaced through the grid, and the jail, churches, offices and armory are marked block by block. Then the plat turns around and gets practical: the lots are measured, blocks are numbered and the alley note says twenty feet. Waller used temporary government buildings at temporary locations, so a label here should be read as the plan's assignment unless another source verifies a completed structure.
PRESERVED FROM THE HISTORICAL WEBSITE
Plan of the City of Austin, 1839
Created 09-July-2004
Publisher: Lithographed by Greene, New Orleans.
Cartographer: Pilie, L.J., 1839
Surveyed by L.J. Pilie and Charles Schoolfield.
Description: Plat is bounded by East Avenue, North Avenue (Fifteenth Street), West Avenue, and the Colorado River. Shows creeks, streets, lots and blocks by number--giving measurements, the location of government buildings and Capitol Square, an armory, churches, the University Academy, jails, and public squares. Note: "All the alleys are Twenty feet wide."
Courtesy of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Sources & further reading
- Texas State Archives Map Collection: Plan of the City of Austin, 1839 (opens in a new tab) ↗
- TSHA Handbook of Texas: Austin, TX (Travis County) (opens in a new tab) ↗
- The Portal to Texas History: Plan of the City of Austin (opens in a new tab) ↗
New editorial notes accompany the preserved archive description. The viewer uses the original map tiles; the full-size JPG assembles those tiles into one image.