Denison in 1886

Henry Wellge was an experienced bird’s-eye-view artist by the time he began his Texas tour in 1885. With more than fifty prints to his credit, he produced an India-ink drawing of Denison, more or less the northern entrance into Texas, that one correspondent claimed “shows at a glance the character of the country, the location and development of our city.” Denison was a city literally built by the railroad… [More]

Denison in 1891

Thaddeus Fowler perhaps began his second tour of Texas with his picture of Denison, a growing city with a population approaching 11,000 by 1891. On January 11, The Sunday Gazetteer reported that the artist had been in the city for several weeks making pencil sketches for the new bird’s-eye view, which would be much larger than previous views of the city. “It is believed to include every residence within… [More]

Denton in 1883

Denton was established in 1857 to serve as the county seat of Denton County. Anglo-American settlement in the region had begun with the Peters colony grant in 1841, but the community, based on sustenance agriculture, grew slowly until the arrival of the railroads in 1881.The population of the city more than doubled to 2,558 in the ensuing decade. The railroad connections to Sherman, Dallas, and Fort Worth provided farmers… [More]

Eagle Pass in 1887

Augustus Koch’s bird’s-eye view of Eagle Pass is dominated by the Rio Grande on the left side of the picture; the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway at the right and bottom; and Fort Duncan in the lower right-hand corner. An unnamed creek separates the city from the fort.

Eagle Pass began in 1850 when a settlement grew up around Fort Duncan, which had been established the previous year on… [More]

El Paso in 1886

Throughout its history prior to 1881, El Paso-area business had been dominated by its location on the north-south Camino Real that connected Mexico City with Chihuahua and Santa Fe. With the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad in May 1881, however, the city got a direct rail connection with the West Coast, and when the Southern Pacific connected with the Texas and Pacific at Sierra Blanca the following December… [More]