About The Collection

The Yana and Marty Davis Map Collection began with an initial donation in 2004 of over 700 maps and atlases to the Museum of the Big Bend, focusing on Texas and its borders. The second donation in 2015 of over 400 maps and atlases included not only maps of Texas but also Oklahoma and the Indian Territory. The third donation, which is still in progress, concentrates on Mexico.

In addition, each donation includes navigational charts, sketches, and maps of land claims and sovereignty, settlement, defense and development. Transportation and natural resource maps and publications are included.

Based on this collection, The Center for Texas Studies at TCU collaborated in 2007 with Davis to create the publication and traveling map exhibit Going to Texas: Five Centuries of Texas Maps. Sixty-four maps from the collection were selected to tell the story of the Lone Star State, along with ten essays written by noted historians. This book is as a handy reference for the map collection.

Chapter topics include Spanish Exploration, 1519 to 1783; the Louisiana Purchase and Texas Borderlands, 1803 to 1821; Colonization, 1821 to 1836, the Republic of Texas, 1836 to 1845, West Texas frontier, 1848 to 1861; Annexation to Secession, 1845 to 1861; Post-Civil War, 1865 to 1900; Disorder on the Border, 1910-1923; and Texas in the 20th century.