In that "I was dropped on my sense of humour a lot as a toddler" way.

[dolari]

MAP GEEKINESS RULES!

I know where Mud City is now, thanks to the Texas State Library! Turns out they finally posted all the old maps from the 1940s, and I was just looking at them, and POOF - Mud City!

Y'all prolly don't remember two years ago when I was living with Erin, but all along the road going to her house, were a string of ghost towns. I passed Hornsby Bend, Mud City, Dunlap, and Deatsville virtually EVERYDAY for six months. I managed to find Hornsby Bend, Dunlap and Deatsville pretty easily, but I could not, for the LIFE of me, find out where Mud City was.

Turns out, what I thought was Hornsby Bend, IS Mud City. And Hornsby Bend is just east of there.

Although it really doesn't matter anymore (it's all Austin, now), meant a lot to me in a purely Ghost Town Way. The map is here, if anyone really wants to see it (Mud City is in the far right, east of town) - http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/aris/maps/maplookup.php3?mapnum=5008

Which leads to MAP GEEKINESS Part Two:

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/cgi-bin/aris/maps/maplookup.php3?mapnum=1891

I've been looking for this set of maps for TWENTY YEARS. Ever since I learned about the Camino Real. Basically, it's a turn-by-turn map of the Camino Real through Texas as checked by a rofessional cartograher, looking for the route. It's the maps they based the granite markers you can see in Closetspace on.

Now they're not perfect (Zively and I disagree on the path of the road from San PEdro Springs to Pleasanton), but they're from a guy who did more on-the-ground research that I could ever do, thanks to Texas Property Shoot-first-ask-questions-later Laws..

And I have copies being sent to my PO Box for $12.

Hot damn! :D

Comments

[purple-roses.livejournal.com]

How cool! I love hands-on Texas history like this. Thanks for the links.

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

There's a great book called "Hill Country" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0891230300/qid=1085784812/sr=8-9/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i9_xgl14/102-6873611-7560125?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) that has a lot of ghost towns and history of the Central Texas area. It's in my truck along with Roads of Texas (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0940672642/qid=1085784886/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-6873611-7560125?v=glance&s=books) and several local Austin/San Antonio almanacs. :)

[kengr]

Neat!

Reminds me of the fun I had years back when I set a D&D campaign at a lake I used to visit frequently. I got a USGS topo map and even one of those plastic relief maps an outfit makes from the topo maps.

On a trip back to that area a few years back, I found a map with depth contours for the lake (Priest Lake, Idaho). I knew it was deep, but imagine my surprise at finding that it's got stretches that are over 300 feet deep!!

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

I used a really neat topographical map of the Waring, Tx, area to make this kick-ass render the area using Terragen. I tried using one of my old home in PA...but PA has mountains, and those elevation lines were WAY Too close. :)

[elenderel.livejournal.com]

If I were in Texas, I would gloriously share your map geekiness and go with you on these rambles! In high school I used to study maps of Rochester NY for some unknown reason. Came in handy a few years later when I was the only freshman at UofR who had any idea where they were in the city. Since then I've collected maps and loved em!