T H E  N E A T L I N E
		A Newsletter of the Texas Map Society           Vol. IV No 1 Summer 2001

Off the Wall: The President's Column
By Dennis Reinhartz

What a Great Idea?

I thought that I would devote my column this time to something wonderful that has happened with regard to preserving and publicizing parts of Texas' cartographic heritage. In February of this year,
Texas Monthly and numerous newspapers across the state ran informative articles about the Adopt-A-Map program launched by the Texas General Land Office in Austin (map specialist at the General Land Office and Texas Map Society member Joan Kilpatrick was prominently pictured in the The Dallas Morning News article). Under this program, Land Commissioner David Dewhurst has asked businesses, historical associations, and individuals for an initial $500,000 to support the restoration of approximately 500 deteriorating maps in the General Land Office's holdings. These maps are not only important to Texas' history but continue to be called upon regularly by surveyors, lawyers, and other users of these holdings.

The conservation costs range from $500 to $10,000 per map with the average cost running at about $1,000 per map. All donations are welcome, but donors of $500 or more will receive special commemorative copies of the maps they have chosen to adopt. All funds are tax deductible and go directly to the conservation efforts. The first group of about twenty maps already has been restored  and returned to Texas from the Northeastern Document Conservation Center in Andover, Massachusetts. Beginning with the February issue, Texas Monthly has been reproducing one of these maps each month. The first was Stephen F. Austin's Map of Texas, (Philadelphia, 1830) at full size for all of its readers to see and to help publicize the program.

Is this not a great idea? It has already proven quite successful elsewhere. The case of the famous Hereford Map in the United Kingdom some years ago springs to mind. I look forward to Joan Kilpatrick from the General Land Office doing a presentation about the Adopt-A-Map program at the TMS meeting in the spring of 2002 at Tyler.  Anyone interested in maps and our cartographic heritage should be willing to support this valuable program. So contact the General Land Office to pick out your map!

The Texas Map Society
For information please contact
Kit Goodwin at goodwin@uta.edu
Last Updated 06/21/02