Jefferson in 1872
As the bird’s-eye-view phenomenon coursed through the country, three additional artists arrived in Texas in the 1870s and produced views of more than a dozen different cities. Herman Brosius, the first bird’s-eye-view artist to follow Drie into the state, probably arrived in Jefferson in the spring of 1872 by steamboat from nearby Shreveport, Louisiana, where he had done a bird’s-eye view of that city. Jefferson was then one of… [More]
La Grange in 1880
Augustus Koch began his second tour of Texas probably in late 1880 with a drawing of La Grange, the county seat of Fayette County. Following Anglo-American immigration into the area in the 1820s, the region had quickly developed a plantation economy built on slavery and the fertile lands along the Colorado River. With increasing German and Wend immigration after the Civil War, the size of farms decreased, but their… [More]
Ladonia in 1891
The population of Ladonia, in the southeastern corner of Fannin County, numbered around 1,000 when Fowler visited in 1891 to make this view of the city. It is doubtful that there would have been a sufficient market for Fowler’s views among so few citizens themselves, in Ladonia or any of the other small towns that the bird’s-eye view artists documented. Perhaps several entrepreneurs or city officials took it upon… [More]
Laredo in 1892
The railroads brought prosperity and new settlers to Laredo when they arrived in 1881, and the city grew from an 1880 population of 3,521 to 11,319 in 1890. But instead of focusing on the railroads, as many other bird’s-eye-view artists had done, Henry Wellge emphasized the results of the railroads, which had turned Laredo into a growing city and the gateway to Mexico. The Texas Mexican Railway linked Laredo… [More]
McKinney in 1876
As with many other city views, the new courthouse and the railroad are the dominant features of D. D. Morse’s view of McKinney. The Houston and Texas Central Railway had arrived in October 1872, transforming the Collin County economy, and the new courthouse opened with a grand ball on January 1, 1876.
Morse might have made as many as ten bird’s-eye views before he arrived in Texas in 1876, but… [More]