Home Sweet Home: Greater Houston Subdivisions and Neighborhoods

Home Sweet Home: Greater Houston Subdivisions and Neighborhoods is on view at the Julia Ideson Building, inside the Dr. James and Betty Key Map Room of the Houston Public Library. It's a look at how Greater Houston's subdivisions, neighborhoods, and cities came together, told through historical maps, brochures, postcards, and photographs.

The exhibition starts in 1836, when brothers Augustus Chapman and John Kirby Allen founded the town at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and White Oak Bayou. They advertised it in the Telegraph and Texas Register as "handsome and beautifully elevated," a promise of fresh starts, cheap land, and economic opportunity that drew settlers and immigrants to the area. From there, the display follows the city's growth across the decades.

Much of what's on the walls comes from the Houston Public Library's own collections. You'll see plat maps, street directories, and city maps from the 1890s and 1900s from the Houston Subdivision Collection, alongside historical maps like Gail and Thomas H. Borden's Plan of the City of Houston and W. E. Wood's 1869 map. The visual side is filled out by the Frank J. Schlueter photograph collection, which dates from 1907 to 1943, the Houston Postcard Collection, and the John E. T. Milsaps papers. Together, they trace the way the city filled in and expanded.

It's a free exhibition, on view from August 22 through December 23, 2026, at the Julia Ideson Building.