Tuesday, February 29, 2000

Historic land surveys getting new digital life

For more information, visit the Texas General Land Office. Of particular interest is the Adopt-A-Map project, as well as the Spanish Collection.

Since 1836, the Texas General Land Office, the first agency the Republic of Texas established after winning independence from Mexico, has been keeper of some of the state's most historically relevant records.
   Its archives boast more than 35 million documents, including Spanish and Mexican land titles dating to the 1700s and the earliest county maps hand drawn by Stephen F. Austin, short story writer O. Henry, (a one-time GLO draftsman whose real name was William S. Porter) as well as other surveyors.
   Among its hand-drawn surveys of Nueces County are 1800 maps of the Rincon del Oso and Rincon de Corpus Christi land grants. Collectively, they record the history of our state's earliest landowners and the sequence of land transactions that led to the Texas of today.
   To keep this paper trail from fading into history, the GLO has undertaken a massive effort to restore deteriorating historical maps and documents. The goal is to eventually make available over the Internet these records traditionally referred to by surveyors, genealogists, historians and other academicians.
   "These documents touch the lives of every single person who walks on Texas ground," said Anne Glasgow, executive director of the Austin-based Texas Society of Professional Surveyors. "No survey that happens today happens without the surveys of the past and the information contained in them."
   Contributions help fund effort
   To pay for the restoration of these priceless records, expected to cost several million dollars, Texas Land Commissioner David Dewhurst has established the Adopt-A-Map and Adopt-A-Document program. The program enables Texans to choose which item they wish their tax-deductible donation applied to. The cost of conservation for each varies, depending on age, condition and size.
   The first phase entails the preservation of 400 maps dating to the mid-1800s, the oldest of which is an 1833 map of Stephen F. Austin's colonies. The second phase preserves early land documents of the 1700s. The oldest land document at the GLO is the 1720 title to San Antonio's San Jose Mission. This document, however, already has been restored and is on loan to the GLO by the Moody Foundation.
   Opening archives to Internet
   "The maps are being preserved first because they are in worse condition," said Elna Christopher, director of outreach programs for the GLO. "Many of them are so large that they've been rolled up for over 100 years and are now extremely brittle."
   Currently, those seeking information from these land records must either visit the GLO in person or contact Archives and Records to request a search. By posting them on the Internet, "we'll be able to retire them from the copy machine," Christopher said.
   To make a donation, call Christopher at (512) 463-5169 or e-mail her elna.christopher@glo.state.tx.us
  
 

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