About

After some years in the business, I found that I had acquired a fairly broad collection of Texas maps. So, in response to some requests from customers and others who had an interest in Texiana, I used some computer skills gained in a previous existence and put together the Antique Maps of Texas™ (AMoT) CDROM. The original version which was published in late 2001 had something over 125 Texas maps on it. I was fortunate in the marketing of this CD and it now is sold in over 80 locations in Texas plus representation by a number of specialty and school sellers. The 3rd Edition was published in late 2004 and contains over 210 Texas maps.

Those that bought the AMoT CD could print out the maps, but a number mentioned that it would be nice if they could get selected maps in a format larger than they print at home. And some of my dealers also suggested that having reproductions of some of the more popular maps available in large format print form might be a desirable item. So in mid 2003 some selected Texas and Texas City maps were published in-house on a professional printer capable of handling sheets up to 24’ wide. The demand has grown steadily since that time and more and more different maps are being added. They are available in several different sizes. These maps are all printed on very heavy acid-free stock in several textures and mat or frame nicely.

As an diversion to the antique printed map reproductions, in 2004 we designed and published two separate original Great Cattle Trails maps that are dedicated to the Southwestern Cattle Drives that took place from about 1865 to 1885 after the Civil War. They use original 1876 and 1881 antique maps from the Electric Books collection with the general route or line of the various drives laid over. Included are the Chisholm, Great Eastern, Great Western, Goodnight-Loving, Shawnee and other trails as well as the Butterfield Overland Stage route and the locations of most of the Southwestern frontier Forts.

The 1881 map also shows the fictional Lonesome Dove Texas-to-Montana Cattle Drive based on Larry McMurtry’s epic 1985 novel which was followed by the tremendously successful TV mini-series which cemented the name Lonesome Dove into western lore. For fun we have annotated this map with some of the significant places and events that took place during the drive. These include the Cottonmouth Crossing, the trail of Gus’ tracking Blue Duck, Clara’s place, the hanging of Jake Spooner and many others.

Recently, some of the many original USGS mining, topographical and geological maps in the Electric Books collection have been used to design and publish some poster size maps for artifact collectors and treasure hunters. We hope these maps bring some reality to what has been mostly folklore.

More information and details on purchasing these maps is available at www.lectricbooks.com