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Pub Year	Map Maker	Pub Place	Map Title	Map Price (USD)	Picture
1836	Mitchell, S. Augustus	Philadelphia	A New Map of Texas with the Contiguous American and Mexican States.	$28,500	Picture

An engraved map, with original full color. Backed with japon. The title is ornately lettered with a handsome decorative line border.

Size: Approximately 32 cm (12.6 inches) x 39 cm (15.4 inches) in size. Scale: 1 inch = approximately 73 miles.

Map Type: Book

Unsurpassed in its beauty

This extremely colorful, beautifully engraved map by the famous J.H.Young, followed the appearance of Stephen F. Austin's Texas map in 1830. An intense public interest in the western expansion was stimulated by the expeditions of Lewis and Clark, Zebulon Pike, and others, creating a strong market for maps, guidebooks, and atlases. Because of this intense public interest in the events west of the Sabine river, publisher Mitchell was prompted to issue this map which is among the earliest and most important maps of Texas ever issued.

Texas land features are noted, including range areas of the Apaches Mescalero and Comanche Indian tribes, and conditions such as "elevated prairies," "immense level prairies," and "Droves of Wild Cattle & Horses".

The Mitchell-Young map shows each Mexican Empresario grant, and it contains extensive explanatory blocks of text on obtaining land grants and tax relief, references to the growing Anglo population, and the favorable conditions for raising cattle. Other matters of vital interest to prospective immigrants are also mentioned including tips on navigable rivers with lands which are "the richest and deepest in Texas, and are considered equal in fertility to any in the world". Predictive remarks point out that this fertility along with "a geographical position highly favorable to commercial intercourse with the United States, and the rest of the world, are advantages which doubtless will at no distant period, render it an opulent and powerful State".

It includes three insets with discussions of Texas: "Remarks on Texas," "Rivers of Texas," and "Land Grants". This example is a superior copy, with rich vivid colors and only 4 extremely small spots near the center of the map. The first edition of this map was published in 1835, this example is the much desired second edition, published in the year of Texas independence from Mexico, 1836.

This map is unsurpassed in its beauty and its place in the history of the great Republic of Texas.

References: Streeter, Thomas W. Bibliography of Texas, 1178A, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960; Rumsey 5140.001