“Carrollton,” published by the United States Geological Survey in 1938 using survey data from 1931, captures a revealing moment in the early metropolitan history of North Texas. Drawn at a 1:62,500 scale, it presents Dallas, Highland Park, University Park, and the surrounding country with the measured clarity of interwar American topography. The title points northward to Carrollton, then a distinct community rather than a seamlessly absorbed part of the Dallas urban region. Yet the map’s broader interest lies in its portrayal of a landscape on the cusp of transformation: established city streets, suburban enclaves, rural roads, waterways, and open ground all appear together, documenting the threshold between the older agricultural terrain of Dallas County and the expanding modern city.

The United States Geological Survey brought to this map the disciplined visual language that made its quadrangles indispensable to engineers, planners, travelers, and public agencies. Founded in the late nineteenth century, the USGS became the nation’s authoritative mapper of elevation, drainage, settlement, and infrastructure, producing sheets that were both practical tools and elegant records of place. Here, contour lines, road classifications, water features, landmarks, and place names are arranged with the restrained precision typical of early twentieth-century federal cartography. The result is a map that feels at once technical and atmospheric: a document designed for land management and navigation, yet rich with the historical texture of a region before the freeway age reshaped its scale and movement.

Dallas appears as the dominant urban presence, already a commercial and cultural force in Texas, but still markedly different from the immense metropolitan center it would become. Highland Park and University Park, shown nearby, offer a fascinating counterpoint: planned, affluent residential communities with their own identities, civic structures, and carefully cultivated landscapes. Their inclusion underscores the emergence of suburban prestige around Dallas well before the explosive growth of the postwar decades. Roads and highways radiate through the sheet, linking neighborhoods, towns, parks, and open areas, while the mapped pattern of settlement hints at the forces that would later knit these communities into one of the most dynamic urban regions in the American Southwest.

The map’s topographical character is especially compelling because North Texas elevation changes are often subtle rather than dramatic. The intricate contour lines reveal gentle rises, shallow valleys, drainage corridors, and the slight undulations that influenced road placement, neighborhood development, and water management. Rivers, creeks, lakes, and other water bodies provide the natural framework beneath the urban grid, reminding the viewer that Dallas’s growth was shaped not only by commerce and transportation but also by terrain and hydrology. Parks and green spaces punctuate the built environment, while symbols for roads, landmarks, and civic features give the sheet a dense yet legible quality. Its traditional USGS styling transforms modest elevation shifts into a finely readable portrait of the land.

Viewed today, “Carrollton” is historically valuable as a pre-boom record of a landscape that has been profoundly altered. Since its 1938 publication, Dallas and its northern suburbs have expanded into a densely populated metropolitan fabric, with new highways, subdivisions, commercial districts, reservoirs, and engineered drainage systems changing both the appearance and function of the land. What the map preserves is the earlier geography beneath that growth: the roads before expressways dominated, the suburban edges before they merged, and the waterways before modern urban management reshaped their surroundings. It offers a rare, elegant view of Dallas, Highland Park, University Park, and neighboring communities at a pivotal stage in their evolution from distinct places into the modern Metroplex.

Cities, towns and places on this map

• Dallas
• Highland Park
• University Park
• Various roads and highways
• Water bodies, including rivers and lakes
• Parks and green spaces
• Neighborhoods within Dallas

Historical context & cartographic details

• Historical 1:62,500 topographical map titled “Carrollton”
• Published by the United States Geological Survey (USGS)
• Created from 1931 data and published in 1938
• Shows the surrounding area of North Texas before major later urban and suburban expansion
• The USGS produced this type of topographical map to provide geographic information for public use, planning, and land management
• Features classic early 20th-century USGS cartographic styling
• Uses contour lines to show elevation changes and terrain variation
• Includes symbols for roads, water features, landmarks, and other landscape details
• Documents a region that has since been transformed by metropolitan growth, changing transportation networks, water management, and land use

Looking for a particular place? Review the detailed images to confirm that the town, landmark or feature you have in mind appears on the map. If you are unsure, ask our workshop to check before you order.

Detailed maps are especially rewarding at larger sizes, where names, boundaries and decorative features have more room to be appreciated. Use the close-up preview and size guide to choose the right scale for your wall.

This map looks amazing at sizes all the way up to 50in (125cm). If you are looking for a larger map, please get in touch.

The model in the listing images is holding the 16x20in (40x50cm) version of this map.

Where personalisation is available, you can add a short title or dedication, mark one meaningful place, or request one considered visual detail. See personalised map examples.

Every piece is printed to museum-grade archival standards using fade-resistant pigment inks on acid-free matte paper. Choose an unframed map print, framed map or canvas using the finish options above. Framed maps use crystal-clear optical acrylic and arrive ready to hang.

With its rich detail and strong sense of place, this map makes a considered gift for a new home, anniversary, retirement or anyone with a personal connection to the area shown. Still deciding? Explore our collection of rare old and vintage maps to discover another place, period or style.

This map is also available as a float framed canvas, sometimes known as a shadow gap framed canvas or canvas floater. The map is printed on artist's cotton canvas and then stretched over a handmade box frame. We then "float" the canvas inside a wooden frame, which is available in a range of colours (black, dark brown, oak, antique gold and white). This is a wonderful way to present a map without glazing in front. See some examples of float framed canvas maps and explore the differences between my different finishes.

For something truly unique, this map is also available in "Unique 3D", our trademarked process that dramatically transforms the map so that it has a wonderful sense of depth. We combine the original map with detailed topography and elevation data, so that mountains and the terrain really "pop". For more info and examples of 3D maps, check my Unique 3D page.