This topic overlaps a bit with Historical Fiction, but I think is of primary interest to Western writers. The Amon Carter Museum hosts a website featuring panoramic maps of various Texas cities made in the 1870s-90s. In effect each map is a scale drawing of the town's streets & structures in three-quarter view. The maps only label landmarks such as train depots, churches, courthouses & such, but they depict the whole sweep of the town as it looked, stores, houses, trains arriving, stage coaches, even people on foot or horseback.
There's a tendency to assume Westerns take place in wind-swept prairies, ranches, or mountain ranges. But the old-time cowtown is a good setting as well. Bigger cities boasted their fair share of gunslinging gamblers and lawmen.
The maps include a pretty broad cross-section of towns, in addition to well-known cities such as Austin, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio & El Paso, there are quite a few maps of places like Cuero (a frequent haunt of John Wesley Hardin), Waco, Abilene, Quanah, Laredo, and many others.
I've studied the maps of Austin from 1873 & 1887 under the maximum magnification and have found them quite detailed. In almost every case where I've been able to verify the details either by a photograph or visiting the structure on the ground, I've been able to verify that the map accurately depicts the structure on the site. For example you can see Tips Hardware on Congress one lot over from the Johns Hamilton building. The Old Bakery on the end of Congress is almost completely obscured, but you can make out the sculpture of an eagle atop the facade that is still there. You can see the Neill-Cochran House (a museum today) on San Gabriel a short distance from the Freedman's Bank (which is being converted into a bar). I can't find Woodlawn and the building where Stubbs BBQ is (NE corner of Red River & Hickory) is not there, but otherwise the map is stunningly detailed.
As I said, only a few locations are labeled, but if you know the town's history on the ground, you can find a lot in these maps.
There's a tendency to assume Westerns take place in wind-swept prairies, ranches, or mountain ranges. But the old-time cowtown is a good setting as well. Bigger cities boasted their fair share of gunslinging gamblers and lawmen.
The maps include a pretty broad cross-section of towns, in addition to well-known cities such as Austin, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio & El Paso, there are quite a few maps of places like Cuero (a frequent haunt of John Wesley Hardin), Waco, Abilene, Quanah, Laredo, and many others.
I've studied the maps of Austin from 1873 & 1887 under the maximum magnification and have found them quite detailed. In almost every case where I've been able to verify the details either by a photograph or visiting the structure on the ground, I've been able to verify that the map accurately depicts the structure on the site. For example you can see Tips Hardware on Congress one lot over from the Johns Hamilton building. The Old Bakery on the end of Congress is almost completely obscured, but you can make out the sculpture of an eagle atop the facade that is still there. You can see the Neill-Cochran House (a museum today) on San Gabriel a short distance from the Freedman's Bank (which is being converted into a bar). I can't find Woodlawn and the building where Stubbs BBQ is (NE corner of Red River & Hickory) is not there, but otherwise the map is stunningly detailed.
As I said, only a few locations are labeled, but if you know the town's history on the ground, you can find a lot in these maps.
