The Evolution of
the Lands in Texas

This vast territory has been inhabited by many cultures for several centuries beginning with the Native Americans and, by the late 1700's, Spain was showing interest by introducing horse and cattle ranching to the Southwest. However, Spain lost its grip on the new world and the importance of Texas was soon forgotten by the Spaniards. From 1821 to 1836, Texas fell under the reign of Mexico until the Republic of Texas won its independence. While Texas existed as an independent republic for nearly ten years, the fledgling nation encountered a host of difficulties including Indian wars, poor relations with Mexico, financial woes and political problems. Despite all this, immigrants yearning for their own land responded to the generous land policies and flocked to the new republic and during this period of rapid growth the republic doled out more than 50 million acres of its public domain.

In this evolution of the American West, little attention has been given to the hardy man who measured and marked the land – the surveyor. There have been many books about the missionary, the explorer, the fur trader, the miner, the buffalo hunter, the cattleman, and the homesteader; but someone had to stake out the land before it

David W. Myers

The Natives had no need for the surveyors. Their claim to land ownership was by the tribe. They lived and hunted, fought and died across the miles of land we now call Texas and needed no boundary lines, no fence posts, no marker to tell the specific spot where one’s boundaries began and ended. Their guidelines were the stars, the moon and the seasons of changing winds. Their cities ended in the shadows outside the campfire.

Then, a new breed of man rode south to the hills, into the forests and across the plains of Texas. He brought the compass and mathematics; he was the surveyor. Like the trapper and the trader, like the frontier soldier in Army blue and buckskin, he was the pioneer.

In the vanguard of the westward surge of settlement was the survey party, crossing the almost empty plains by saddled horse or by buckboard and sleeping under the stars or in a small tent. Surveyors had to mark the routes of railroads, line up the lands which were granted to the rail companies, measure the widespread cattle ranches, and divide new townsites into streets, blocks and lots.

The surveyor was one of the earliest of civilized men to make this new land his own and call it home. He brought many talents. If he knew fear (and like all brave men, he did) it was tempered by his daring to do what few other men had done.

Without this man’s ability to draw a straight line across land that had never known the taming of a single string drawn taut by the exactness of a mathematical equation, this land could have never been tamed.

It is a tribute to these pioneers of the profession that we are obligated by law today to "follow in their footsteps."