The Santa Fe in Texas
Galveston, TX: Passenger Department, Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway, c. 1906.
Promotional brochure and railway map, 27" x 28" folding to 4" x 8.75", with 21 panels printed on both sides. One side is taken up primarily with a detailed Rand McNally map of most of Texas, with the route of the Santa Fe Railway shown in red. Around the edges of the map are 11 captioned photographs showing agricultural scenes (feed lots, a cotton compress, rice fields, winter cabbage, prize sheep, a pecan orchard) from around the state. The other side is comprised of 19 numbered pages of text (with 11 additional photographs) and front and rear covers. The text urges every homeseeker and investor to go to Texas to see for themselves "the most important and inexhaustible agricultural area with an adequate coastline IN THE WHOLE WORLD." Each region of the state (North, Central, East, Gulf Coast, Concho-Colorado Valley) is treated separately, with optimistic details of climate, land prices, and primary agricultural products, as well as lengthy testimonials from local farmers. Separate sections highlight the prospects for growing tobacco and figs and describe the Santa Fe's Experimental Gardens (located in Alvin, Sealy, Kopperl, Gainesville, and Matagorda), which are designed "not only to have something to show the new comer, but to impress upon the old timer the fact that he is living in a country of wonderful resources, rich in possibilities that he has not dreamed of." Such near-guarantees of prosperity ignored a critical lack of rainfall in some regions and helped drive the increases in cultivation and erosion that ultimately led to disaster in the Dust Bowl years. Fair to good condition: some chipping to the the upper margin, numerous tears along the folds, with some very tiny losses to the map, none to the text. A few spots have been mended with archival tissue for purposes of stabilization only; further preservation measures would be advisable. Stamp of Joseph W. Hansen, Land and Immigration Agent, Houston, on p. 17. Fascinating and quite rare; unrecorded in OCLC.
Item #14030
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