C.H. Rogers, Greater Fort Worth City, 1919, Map #93423, Map Collection, Archives and Records Program, Texas General Land Office, Austin, TX.

Greater Fort Worth City, 1919

This pocket map of Fort Worth, published by C. H. Rodgers in 1919, highlights the city’s major road routes and rail lines in red, outdoor spaces in green, as well as schools, churches, and businesses.

The map was produced in two different editions, a large cloth version to hang on a wall and a pocket version (shown here) with a directory.

Many of the city’s oil and gas companies are shown in the northern parts of the city. On the outskirts of town, helpful “road signs,” also in red, provide the distances to nearby towns and cities along a given road.

[left] Not only is Rogers’ map highly detailed, but it is also well researched. According to the legend, the map was compiled from public records and special surveys that he had conducted. Many of these surveys and their numbers appear on the map. On the outskirts of town, Rogers also added helpful “road signs” in red that provided the distances to nearby towns and cities along a given road. [right] Rogers intended to place Fort Worth as a major manufacturing hub during the first decades of the twentieth century. This is made particularly clear in the compass rose, through which he demonstrated that “all roads lead to Fort Worth” by naming the major railways that met at the city. He also lists the major industries, including cattle, cotton, and grain.

The map features a unique compass rose with a globe and highlights the principal local rail lines and industries, and an alpha-numeric locator system on its margins to help residents using an index (not included here). It also delineates original land grant surveys using dashed lines, with the grantees’ names, acreage, and survey numbers included.

In an inset on the bottom right-hand corner, the publisher advertises the sale of a wall map four times larger than this pocket map.

Niles City, located about three miles north of Ft. Worth’s center and incorporated only eight years prior, was often referred to as “the richest little city in the state of Texas” because of the companies, stockyards, stock exchange, and packing plants within its limits. Rogers provided detailed locations for these features of the City. Fort Worth annexed Niles City in 1923.

Texas city maps like this one, considered ephemeral at the time, are increasingly rare despite their important contributions to the cartographic history of the state.

A reproduction of this map can be purchased on the GLO website.