Brownsville, Texas Fort Brown & Matamoros, Mexico [cover title]

Portland, ME: Chisholm Bros, 1890. [12]pp. of illustrations from photographs, bound accordion style. Original decoratively blindstamped red cloth with front titles stamped in black. Moderate rubbing and scuffing to boards, spine a bit chipped. Internally nice. Overall very good. A wonderful pictorial promotional showing numerous views on the streets of the border towns of Brownsville and Matamoros. Ten of the twelve pages feature Brownsville, with various street views, pictures of Mexican jacales, various schools and churches, the Rio Grande Railroad Depot, the City Market, residences, elevated views of the town, and so forth, with a few small views of Fort Brown. The Matamoros pictures show the cathedral and customs house, a street scene, the opera house, and the city market, along with views of two U.S.-related buildings. A printed notice on the first page indicates the work was "Published by Lieut. W.H. Chatfield, U.S. Army." The work was printed by the Chisholm Brothers of Portland, Maine, prolific creators of similar view books for cities across the United States and Canada. OCLC records just six institutional copies, at New York Historical, Stony Brook, Yale, Museum of Fine Arts-Houston, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, and UT-Rio Grande Valley.