The old map of Houston was something like a gift ostrich - fascinating, but a little hard to live with.

Dating to 1900, it was showing definite signs of wear. Warren Outlaw Jr., a League City man who got the map from his father, hung it in his computer room. Then it started turning brown.

Outlaw moved the flaking map to his garage, then a closet. He offered it for sale on eBay, but got no takers. Then, in early 2011, Outlaw learned of the Texas General Land Office's campaign to conserve and digitize approximately 100,000 maps in its archives.

When Outlaw offered to donate this map to the agency's Save Texas History program, staff members were elated.

"This map ended up being a very rare map of Houston," said James Harkins, the agency's director of public services, archives and records. "It's very difficult to find and even more difficult to find as a duplication."

Now, high-quality, full-color copies of the map showing in minute detail the six wards of a young but growing city will be offered the public as the agency launches its holiday season sales drive. Also new this year is a Houston map dating to 1895.

More Information To view and order maps on the General Land Office's searchable Web site, go to www.glo.texas.gov/save-texas-history.

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Money from the sales - copies of any archived map can be purchased for $20 to $40 - will be used for document conservation. The Legislature provides no funds for conservation or educational promotion of historic maps and documents.

"Everybody seems to love maps," Harkins said. "They are kind of like magnets for your eyes. ... We've got maps of every city and county you can think of. We've got maps of all 254 counties, hundreds of cities, dozens of the Republic of Texas and a 1720 map of the New World."

1,099 maps conserved

The maps, which are basic research documents for the oil and land businesses, are reproduced at full size in stable inks on art-grade paper. Unlike the originals, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, the General Land Office duplicates can be framed and exhibited without significant deterioration.

Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson launched the conservation program in 2004. Since then, 1,099 maps have been conserved, a process that costs about $4,000 per map. Almost all the agency's map holdings, Harkins said, have been digitized.

Harkins said the oldest, rarest and most deteriorated maps are conserved first. At present, he said, 325 maps are deemed in "critical condition."

Cheryl Carrabba, whose Austin conservation studio has worked with Save Texas History, said the original maps sometimes are "really damaged by mold, vermin, insects or water. Mostly all the paper was acidic industrial paper that never was designed for maps or rare books. Most are backed with linen."

Map had problems

At the most basic, backings must be removed and the maps soaked in an acid-neutralizing solution. Carrabba's workers remove Scotch tape and mend tears. The conservation process can take up to two weeks of intensive work, she said.

Outlaw's map, about 2½ by 3½ feet, depicts the footprint of a city with less than 45,000 residents. The map had a variety of problems. Edges chipped off the brittle paper; an upper portion of the map appeared to have been burned.

"That's where it turned brown," Outlaw explained, saying the damage likely resulted from humidity.

Outlaw, who recently retired as a Galveston County sheriff's jailer, said he received the map from his father in 2000.

"There really wasn't a lot of history to it," he said. "My father got it in about 1984. He ran a gun shop in Brackettville and people were always bringing him trinkets ... I was happy to donate it."