1889 Map of Coleman

About this map

Coleman serves as the focal point of this Central Texas landscape, surveyed in the late 1880s just as the Gulf Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad reshaped the regional economy. The iron rails bisect the terrain, connecting the town to Coleman Junction and the base of the prominent Santa Anna Mountains near the settlement of Santa Anna. This era reveals a transition from frontier military and trade outposts, such as Camp Colorado along Jim Ned Creek, to established agricultural communities like Bangs and Trickham. The map details an extensive drainage system feeding into Pecan Bayou and Hords Creek, illustrating the vital water sources that dictated early settlement patterns. For researchers, the presence of vanished or diminished locales like Byrds Store, Thrifty, and Cedarton provides a rare look at the rural social geography of the late nineteenth century before modern highway systems altered the local landscape.