Geological Map of Texas Showing Approximate Locations and Drilling Wells, Also Names of Companies Drilling [caption title]

Fort Worth: Standard Blue Print Map & Eng. Co, 1920. Very good.. Folding map, 25.75 x 25.75 inches, on thin paper. Old folds, minor edge wear, several short closed edge tears, a couple of small areas of loss at crossfolds. Overall good condition, and a wonderful display item. A rare and detailed Texas oil map, produced by a Fort Worth firm just after World War I, and here present in the larger 25-x-25-inch issue advertised in the promotional text on the map itself. The map shows the distribution of oil wells and derricks across the Lone Star State in 1920, prints the names of the most prominent oil fields, and lists the names of Texas counties along with the oil companies active in each county. The map also shows the types of soil and rock deposits encountered throughout Texas counties, with a legend of abbreviations for each at bottom right. The area of the map is crowded in places, but still quite attractive and legible, and is a good encapsulation of the rapidly developing oil industry in Texas at the time. Contemporary advertisements for the publisher of this map, Standard Blue Print Map and Engineering, promote the availability of over 200 oil maps of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Arkansas from the firm. A rare map, rarer still in this larger size; we locate just two copies at SMU (one issued with a slightly later "May 1920" copyright notice), with a larger "photocopy" reported at Denver Public Library and the Colorado School of Mines.