What does N.S.B.B. stand for? Struggling to find this plat..
RPLS#, post: 419785, member: 12280 wrote: What does N.S.B.B. stand for? Struggling to find this plat..
North Side of Buffalo Bayou
A quick Google finds a court case referencing "Mrs. A.C. Allen's Addition to the City of Houston, Harris County, Texas NSBB,".
Apparently it is part of the name of the plat.
Kent McMillan, post: 419786, member: 3 wrote: North Side of Buffalo Bayou
Thanks
Here's a link to what was adopted by the Houston City Council as the official map of Houston in 1868. It sounds as if you're working in one of the older additions to Houston. There is an enormous amount of information relatiting to the early surveying of Houston in the files of the Department of Public Works and Engineering, most of it dating from after about 1900, but with some earlier exceptions.
You'll find that the Houston City Engineer established numerous reference rods throughout older districts in the period from about 1890 through at least the 1920s to attempt to locate the centerlines of various streets. You may also find that in some cases the reference rods were markedly inconsistent with the original surveys that the City Engineer should have been attempting to follow and so merely added to an existing confusion.
http://digital.houstonlibrary.org/cdm/ref/collection/maps/id/1
RPLS#, post: 419785, member: 12280 wrote: What does N.S.B.B. stand for? Struggling to find this plat..
the City of Houston still has the linen drawings of these.
Jack Chiles, post: 419950, member: 24 wrote: the City of Houston still has the linen drawings of these.
Although it should be noted that those two drawings are merely maps of attempts that the City Engineer's staff made more than 75 years after Mrs. A.C. Allen Addition was laid out, right?
The 1868 map of Houston I linked above indicates that Block 46 was platted in 1860 and it would be highly unlikely that the City Reference lines L.H. Gillespie shows as geometrically perfect things on Drawing No. 7-30-N, dated 1932 were actually the centerlines of the rights-of-way as laid out before 1880.
For example, here's a link to the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Block 46 that shows it was nearly entirely built out by 1907.
One thing that would be interesting to track down is whether one of the early City Engineers such as Patrick Whitty actually laid out the subdivison of Block 46. I'd bet that most of the additions from the period before maybe 1890 were the work of Houston City Engineers and Whitty's tenure in office was the longest of the 19th-century City Engineers during that period.
I take it back. Porter, Pollard & Ruby's 1890 Map of Houston depicts Block 46 of the A.C. Allen Addition as then not yet having been resubdivided.
So, I'd suppose that any plan of resubdivision probably dates from between 1890 and 1907. That would place it after Patrick Whitty's tenure as City Engineer.
I think you are correct, Kent, in that the block was subdivided in the span. I also believe that when the block was fully laid out, it was tied to the City's centerlines. Mostly, I was just trying to explain that the City Survey Section has a plethora of information at its fingertips. Also, there is something about linen that I cannot help but love.
(Jefe, what is a plethora?)
Lol.
Jack Chiles, post: 419966, member: 24 wrote: Mostly, I was just trying to explain that the City Survey Section has a plethora of information at its fingertips.
Yes the City of Houston Dept of PWE Surveying Section has an amazing amount of very useful information in its files. Even though it wasn't until the very early 20th century that the City Engineers were required to turn over the records of work done by them to their successors, the records from the early 20th century are still useful in that they often make reference to evidence that is no longer in place such as wood stakes and building improvements.
As you probably recall, I haven't been a great fan of Louis H. Gilespie after seeing the incredible mess that he made of various blocks in the W.R. Baker Addition NSBB by ignoring nearly all of the work that prior City Engineers had done (and to which the blocks had plainly been developed). The attempt to hammer everything to conform to some theoreticalof a phantom of a plat is easily one of the more absurd things I've seen to date.
Rule of Thumb: if a location of a street line throws entire blocks of houses more than ten feet into where you think the street right-of-way is, it may be time to rethink the approach.