Map of Texas and part of New Mexico, compiled in the Bureau of Topographical Engineers chiefly for military purposes (1857)
The Army’s 1857 compilation of the routes across Texas and New Mexico: the Comanche Trail from Horsehead Crossing on the Pecos by Comanche Spring toward Mexico, the Indian trails of the Edwards Plateau, and the military roads between the forts.
Source
| Map | Map of Texas and part of New Mexico |
|---|---|
| Author | U.S. Topographical Engineers, 1857 |
| Archive | Library of Congress |
| Rights | Public domain. Published 1857 — before 1931, so public domain in the United States. Evidence |
| Accuracy | About 21 km (RMS 6.1 km at 99 control points). Placed by hand in a map-queue session and approved by a person. If something sits in the wrong place, members can fix it with Fix placement on the map. |
| Method | Placed by hand: a smoothing thin-plate spline through 99 places read from the scan and matched to their positions today. See the methodology. |
| Version | 1.0.2, updated 2026-10-08 |
| Covers | Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma |
Downloads
- Google Earth overlay (KMZ) — free (4.6 MB)
- GeoTIFF, tinted trails, EPSG:4326 (8000 × 6327; QGIS, ArcGIS) — free (15.9 MB)
- Print sheet over today’s map (3600 × 2200 PNG) — free (2.4 MB)
Project Homeland
This map is open for tracing into Project Homeland, one map of the trail network melded from every traced source. Members trace a trail by clicking along it: Trace a trail on the map.
Changelog
- 1.0.2 (2026-10-08): Re-placed: Presidio del Norte re-read on its town symbol (it sat on the label). Leave-one-out error 8.2 → 7.7 km. Place names moved with it (median 0.0 km).
- 1.0.1 (2026-10-06): Fix: place names re-placed where the map draws them (they had been set by an approximation of the warp: median 7.2 km, up to 26 km off).
- 1.0.0 (2026-09-30): First release: placed by hand at 99 places. From the Native Routes sources register; Library of Congress Geography and Map Division.
Credits
- From the Native Routes sources register; Library of Congress Geography and Map Division
- Georeferencing: Native Routes
- Scan: Library of Congress
Control points
The full list of control points with residuals is in control-points.geojson. Historic names indexed for search: names.geojson.
Something on this map sits in the wrong place? Members can show where with Fix placement on the map — confirmed fixes are tested against the map’s other control points each night and credited here. For anything else, report a problem.
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