1941 Map of Big Spring South

About this map

Big Spring sits at the northern edge of this West Texas landscape, which drops south from the high plains into the breaks of the Signal Mountains. Surveyed in the late 1930s, the map reveals a region defined by scattered livestock operations and the emergence of the local oil industry. Small rural communities like Forsan and the cluster at Ross City serve as anchors between the sprawling ranches, including the Wasson Ranch, Morgan Ranch, and West Ranch. A series of country schools like Chalk Sch and Panther Draw Sch indicate a distributed population during this era, while the Big Spring City Water Wells highlight the critical importance of groundwater in this semi-arid environment. The terrain is marked by the Watershed Divide that separates the drainage of Beals Creek from the headwaters of the Colorado Concho to the south.