Laying out a Town?

[MustangGray]

List,

Has anyone ever organized or participated in an event recreating the laying out of a 19th century townsite? I'm working on new event ideas for the site I work at and have decided to do a "founding of/laying out" of our townsite, Washington, Texas.

I was curious to see whether or not anyone has done something similar to this before?

[tomarch]

Re: Laying out a Town?

Hi John:I guess it depends on the type of town getting laid out. Out here along the Sierra foothills (Gold Rush country) things were pretty rushed in laying out a new town site (there are some good descriptions in "Up and Down in California" by Wm. Brewer, who was part of the State Geological Survey of 1861-1864). As far as practical matters go the lot lines would be laid out using compass and a surveyors chain. Chains would be either a 2-rod chain (33') of a Gunter Chain of 4-rod legnth (66'). I've also heard of chains used in Texas measured in Varas (a spanish/mexican unit of legnth)
This probably raises more questions than gives answers. you might also head over to www.topogs.org and ask Don Erickson as they do an outstanding impressiopn of the U.S.Army Corps of Topographical Engineers in addition to being professional surveyors and civil engineers in modern life. Hope this helps some

[Silvana Siddali]

Re: Laying out a Town?

What a fantastic idea for an event. Here in the "middle west" this is a scene you'd have observed any time from the early years of the 19th century until long after the Civil War. I hope you do decide to go for it; I'd really be interested in hearing more about it. In the meantime, here's an excerpt from an Illinois newspaper that I thought you might find interesting. The editorial emphasizes the wild & somewhat rough-and-tumble nature of town planning in the early to mid-19th century. I think you could have a lot of fun researching and carrying out a few of these impressions, especially the speculators and boosters! My only regret is that there wouldn't have been a lot of roles for women beyond perhaps cooking and laundering for the out-of-towners. Though I suspect families would have come from far & wide and perhaps even camped out nearby to watch the proceedings.

Edwardsville Spectator, March 20, 1821. Sites for villages. In the infancy of every state, but more particularly in ours, the subject of village sites occupies more time, creates more private contentions, and sacrifices more public prosperity, than most other measures of local disturbance combined.

A few speculators have a tract surveyed and divided into lots—call the place a town—puffingly advertise a public sale—sell part to inferior castle-builders—give part to the neighboring builders of log-houses—get a pedling merchant and cobbler to inhabit them—and the village is completed. But to enhance its value still more, it must be made a county seat; and a deceptive petition to the legislature is therefore frequently circulated for some division or mangling of the county, necessary to forward this object. Within eight or ten miles another farce of the kind has probably been acted, and a petition to suit this party is therefore framed. Or perhaps some intermediate men, not sufficiently interested for either to go to any extreme in favor of their nominal villages; and, disgusted with the violent forcing measures of a speculating party, rise up in their might, and appeal for their own right to be heard. Here immediately a fruitful field for waste of time and the brawlings of contention is opened, where public utility is almost always sacrificed on the shrine of private interest. … the ideal importance of a seat of justice (which, however, a species of idiotical frenzy magnifies into a temporary reality) is thus obtained for a spot which has nothing but the name to recommend it.—The original speculators get rich—the second or third orders are ruined—the poorer materials leave the place—and this is the usual history of villages.

[MustangGray]

Re: Laying out a Town?

Mr. Smith,

Thanks for the posting. I've a friend(and Bro.) who does a TOPOG impression for MexWar era events who I am talking with about gear and equipment.

Ms. Siddali,

Thank you for the period account. From what I know about our town it was laid out in 1833 but was not really inhabited until some time later(ca. 1836). Washington got off to a slow start but three years after it was plotted and marked folks began to take interest and started slowly moving in. I plan on doing this event in two parts. The first will portray the actual work done laying the town out and the second will portray the folks moving in and the auctioning(sp?) off of the lots.

I think this idea has a lot(no pun intended) of potential and could be easily done all across the West. It doesn't require any real buildings or structures and is something I've never personally seen or heard of anyone doing. Thanks again for your post!

[tomarch]

Re: Laying out a Town?

Dear Scott: Happy to give you the info. I hope this devlopes into a first-rate event. I have always thought that this type of event would be great for us in the Gold Country as well. At present there are a group of civillians up at Columbia S H P. doing something similar with board and canvass "building set up as a new gold camp/town. Haven't been there to see it but I will get up there to try it someday.....

http://www.columbiacalifornia.com/diggins.html

[Alamo Guard]

Re: Laying out a Town?

Im sure you must first look at resourses natural and otherwise when laying out a town.
I guess it kind like the wants of the ID for laying out a town. First a source of food and water, second shelter where would the materials come from, and lastly compaionship, meaning why would people want to come to your town?
The great advantage of the railroads were they could bring all three at once. Many towns actually moved to railheads, lock, stock, and barrel while other whitered and died.
The town of Helena Texas was once the largest town between Victoria and San Antonio Texas. It was one of the few places where the San Antonio River could be safely crossed. it boasted a population of about 2000 in its heyday. Then shortly after the WBTS the railroad came through to the west. Helena now is just a few skeletons of buildings, wind blown historical markers, and a few die hard hermits.
When also laying out the town consider other things as defense, sanitation, and even locations of such things as swamps, mountains, indians, and friehgt lines.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Laying out a Town?

Im sure you must first look at resourses natural and otherwise when laying out a town.
I guess it kind like the wants of the ID for laying out a town. First a source of food and water, second shelter where would the materials come from, and lastly compaionship, meaning why would people want to come to your town?
The great advantage of the railroads were they could bring all three at once.

I think there's also the great question of how are people going to make money in your town, if they hope to become so productive that they make more than the town itself can use? The railroads (and canals and roads before them) were important not only for getting things in, but more for getting things out. There's no incentive to raise hundreds of bushels of corn or saw boards from the local timber or mine coal from the hillside if your neighbors can't use it all and it costs so much to take it to other markets that there's no profit.

So the relatively cheap and efficient transportation of railroads opened up land and resources that before weren't profitable to exploit, because hauling things to market over bad roads by wagon cost so much it was barely worth it.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[MustangGray]

Re: Laying out a Town?

Mr. Lind and Mr. Trent,

Thank you both for the replies. I think what you both offered would be great for some sort of meeting to discuss the creation of a town however what I'll be doing is actually surveying and laying out a town rather than discussing the creation of a town.

Our site is Washington, Texas or better known now as Washington on the Brazos(birthplace of Texas and last capitol of the republic). There is some confusion as to when exactly it was started but 1833 is agreed upon as the date it was surveyed and laid out. From what I have read it wasn't until 1835 or so that folks really began to take an interest in it and then it wasn't until the capitol moved here in 1842 that people really moved in en masse. The town was/is situated on a major road running across most of Texas(the LaBahia Trail) where it crossed the Brazos river(just below the confluance of the Brazos and Navasota). That was the main draw was it's situation on a main thoroughfare and aside from that there wasn't much else to draw folks to the town. In 1858 the railroads approached the town and offered to bring the line through for a small fee of $11,000 and since the town had been depending on river traffic(Washington was the highest point navigable by steamers on the Brazos) since 1842 they passed on the railroad. The tracks were dropped eight miles east in a small town called Navasota and within four or five years the entire town of Washington had packed up and moved eight miles east to resettle in Navasota!

The idea with this event is to show what an early surveying camp looked like, to show what went into surveying and marking off a townsite and to talk about the folks who were instrumental in the founding of the town of Washington. A later follow up event being planned is the 1836 auctions for town lots which will probably be done on one of the actual city blocks(or what was a city block in the 1830's!) and I'd like to involve the public in the auction if I can figure out a way to do it without it being to corny!

Mr. Smith,

The Columbia website is awesome... I'd love to visit the actual site at some point. We just did a small event in February recreating a portion of the early days of Houston, Texas and that was very similar to the look I wanted to go for. Houston started as many towns did with lots of tents and a smattering of milled lumber structures and log buildlings. Since we didn't have the funds to do this we opted for a site I've used for almost ten years now that is composed of a collection of mid 19th century houses and outbuildings. God smiled on us the weekend we did the event and dropped a massive amount of rain which made things muddy as hell and played right into alot of the old accounts of the town of Houston circa 1837-38. It kept the visitors away but made for a great atmosphere for the participants. We had a trial based on a historic case wherein two veterans of the Texian War for Independence were tried for murder. We knew how the trial ended historically but with the details and information we had we left it to the attorneys to present their cases and the jury to decide who was guilty or innocent. Interestingly enough in our trial the individual who was probably innocent historically, hung and the individual who deserved to hang historically, got off... both hung in 1838!

Anyway... one day I'll build an 1830's-40's "new" townsite on family property and invite you and everybody else here doing earlier stuff out this way for some early event!

[tomarch]

Re: Laying out a Town?

Dear Scott: Good luck on your project. I hope you get the chance some time to come out here and tour the Gold Rush country!

I thought I'd include one final thought on laying out a town: Town creation was frequently more of an "art" than a science. In a lot of cases out here a group of investors would get together and but up the land for a townsite based on the "best guess" of the original instigator of the idea, often without solid factual data, and then depend on a LOT of boosterism, hype and advertising to get potential sucke..., I mean settlers, to come out and buy lots in the new metropolis. Of course in most cases the promised railroad connection, rivers,roads and /or climate never appeared and so the town frequently died shortly after birth.

Near where I live is the site of "Naples", CA which was subdivided, laid out an recorded in the 1880's. The town was on the coast and lay on the right of way for the Southern Pacific R.R. Unfortunatly, the railroad stopped 10 miles away in Elwood and did not extend to Naples untill 10 or 12 years later. Of course by then the town had already vanished leaving an area of substandard lots in the middle of pristine costal plain, which has caused untold zonimg and planning headaches down to the present day...

If you are going to be at Marmedukes Raid in Sept. maybe we can meet.