Oil Town "Aero Views" - American Oil & Gas Historical Society

Oil Town "Aero Views" - American Oil & Gas Historical Society

'Traveling from Pennsylvania to Texas at the turn of the century, Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler created oil town "aero views" - panoramic maps of many of America's earliest petroleum communities....

'From 1895 to 1897, Fowler worked in the western part of Pennsylvania, especially around Pittsburgh. In 1898 and 1899, he sketched West Virginia towns, and from 1900 to 1903, he was back in Pennsylvania.

'He will travel to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to produce a 1918 map of the "Oil Capital of the World."

'Fowler gained commissions for city plans by interesting citizens and civic groups in the idea of a panoramic map of their community. After one town had agreed to having a map made, he would seek to involve neighboring communities.

'By noting that he had already secured an agreement for a view from one town in the area, Fowler would play on the pride, community spirit, and sense of competition of adjacent communities.

'How did Fowler create his maps? Preparation of panoramic maps "involved a vast amount of painstakingly detailed labor," explains a Library of Congress article on panoramic mapping:

'"For each project a frame or projection was developed, showing in perspective the pattern of streets. The artist then walked in the street, sketching buildings, trees, and other features to present a complete and accurate landscape as though seen from an elevation of 2,000 to 3,000 feet. These data were entered on the frame in his workroom...A careful perspective, which required a surface of three hundred square feet, was then erected from a correct survey of the city."'