TexasFreeway

Preserving the travel history of Texas.

AUSTIN / THE MAP ARCHIVE

Austin in 1885, expanding around railroads and a rising Capitol

The 1885 map shows Austin stretching beyond the older downtown grid into wards, tracts, rail lines and public grounds. It is still a city you can read street by street, but the blank margins are starting to fill with the pieces of a larger capital.

Explore the map

THE MAP AT A GLANCE

A closer look
at 1885.

Dates, details and the people behind the drawing.

Map Date
1885

TSLAC lists the map date as 1885.

Cartographer
Reuben W. Ford

The original page gives the cartographer as Ford, Reuben, W.; the map itself identifies Reuben W. Ford as draftsman, land surveyor and civil engineer.

Publisher Context
City directory

The original page says the map was published for Morrison & Fourmey's Austin City Directory, 1885-1886.

Map Type
Plat

TSLAC classifies the map as a plat showing streets, blocks, schools, cemeteries, the Capitol, the Colorado River, creeks and railroads.

Now explore Austin in 1885Zoom in to find streets, landmarks and familiar places.
EXPLORE THE DETAILS

1885 · Austin

Revised Map of Austin, 1885; features described in Look closer below
Open the complete map image

The complete map is also available as a single image.

Courtesy of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Open full-size map image (opens in a new tab) ↗2,799 × 3,298 pixels · JPG · 1.6 MB

LOOK CLOSER / EDITORIAL NOTES

Find it on the map.

  1. Wards and Tracts

    Large ward letters sit over a mix of numbered blocks and named properties, including farms and reserves. The map is doing city-directory work: it helps people find streets, but also shows where the city was still unevenly built out.

  2. Rail Lines Bend Through the City

    Railroad lines curve along the south and east sides of the settled grid. By 1885 Austin had more than one rail connection, and the map makes those lines part of the everyday city diagram.

  3. Public Institutions on the Edges

    The map labels major public grounds and institutions outside the tightest downtown blocks, including the State Agricultural Fair Grounds and the asylum south of the river. Austin's civic footprint was wider than the street grid alone suggests.

Back to the map ↑

AUSTIN / HISTORICAL CONTEXT

A city directory map during a building decade

This map was published for Morrison & Fourmey's Austin City Directory, 1885-1886, so it had a practical job. It needed to help readers locate streets, wards, blocks, schools, cemeteries, railroads and public places in a city that was no longer just the compact grid around Congress Avenue.

The railroad context had changed since Ford's 1872 map. The International-Great Northern reached Austin in 1876, according to TSHA, and the 1885 map shows rail lines as part of the city's working geography. They sit beside wards, tracts and public grounds rather than outside the story.

The Capitol label also lands in a busy moment. Texas laid the cornerstone for the present Capitol on March 2, 1885, and the building was dedicated in 1888. The map does not show construction activity, but it does place the city on paper during the years when the present Capitol was taking shape.

PRESERVED FROM THE HISTORICAL WEBSITE

Revised Map of Austin, 1885

Created 09-July-2004

Publisher: Published for Morrison & Fourmey's Austin City Directory, 1885-1886.

Cartographer: Ford, Reuben, W.

Shows streets, blocks, schools, cemeteries, the Capitol, the Colorado River, creeks, and railroads.

Courtesy of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission

Sources & further reading

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.