Item #5308 [Oldham City, Texas and Rock Island Investment Co. archive]. E. J. Batte, civil engineer.
[Oldham City, Texas and Rock Island Investment Co. archive].
[Oldham City, Texas and Rock Island Investment Co. archive].
[Oldham City, Texas and Rock Island Investment Co. archive].
[Oldham City, Texas and Rock Island Investment Co. archive].
[Oldham City, Texas and Rock Island Investment Co. archive].

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[Oldham City, Texas and Rock Island Investment Co. archive].

Amarillo, Texas: Rock Island Investment Co., 1907–1939. Printed map, 38.5 x 27.5 cm, plus margins.

A plat map for a development in Oldham County, Texas, accompanied by three related land purchase documents.

Located in the western Panhandle, Oldham County, Texas, formed in 1876 and organized in 1881, is named after Williamson S. Oldham, Sr., a Texas pioneer and Confederate Senator. The county, at one time consisting almost entirely of XIT Ranch land, is primarily made up of ranch and farm land, and boasts thousands of acres of wheat, its major crop. Around 1904, crop farmers started moving into the area when the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf Railway laid tracks through the southern part of the county to connect Amarillo, Texas to Tucumcari, New Mexico.

The unrecorded plat map offered here, surveyed by the Amarillo, Texas-based Rock Island Investment Co. between 12 Oct. and 21 Oct. 1907, shows seventy-two primary divisions of land, surrounding a central public square. Each division is further divided into sub-lots and streets labeled A to G. A railway reservation and the Chicago Rock Island & Gulf R.R. appear along the bottom. Oldham City does not exist as such today, and it appears that the land company’s vision of a fully-formed town never came to pass.

No copies recorded in OCLC.

CONDITION: Old folds, light chipping and tearing along folds.

[with]

Certificate recording that one Mr. C. C. Watkins of Kemp Texas has paid $30, payment in full for one lot in Oldham City “as per the terms and conditions set forth in his contract with the Rock Island Investment Company.” 2 December 1908. Printed certificate, 14 x 21.5 cm. CONDITION: Good, old folds minor chips. CONDITION: Good, old folds, minor chips.

[with]

Typed letter from the President of The Rock Island Investment Company addressed to C. C. Watkins. 15 June 1909. Noting that “all of the lots in Oldham City are 25 x 140 ft., and we have just had some very fine rains through this section of the country and everything is looking good.” CONDITION: Stained, old folds.

[with]

Warranty Deed, confirming the sale of lot number 21 in block number 20 of the original townsite of Oldham to C. C. Watkins. 11 July 1909. Printed document, 35.5 x 21.5 cm. The deed is signed by the President of the Rock Island Investment Co., Clerk of the County Court of the County of Oldham, Texas, William Balfour, and also a notary public. CONDITION: Stained, old folds.

[with]

Fox Company. Original photograph of a Texas landscape. San Antonio, 1939. Silver print, 9.5 x 15 cm. An apparently unrelated Texas photo. CONDITION: Lightly creased.

Item #5308

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