English: This folding railroad promotional brochure map is a fine example of a late nineteenth-century American railway map by one of the most important American railway mapmakers and publishers still in business today: Rand, McNally and Company of Chicago. Established in 1858 as a printing company, by 1873 the firm was known for its railroad related work and had also opened a map department where they advertised "all kinds of Relief Plate Engraving [cerography or wax engraving]". The heavy lines with evenly spaced dots emphasize the main railroad lines, and each dot represents a "whistle-stop" or station where the train would let off and take on passengers and freight. This was, and still is, a characteristic feature of many railroad and subway maps which simplify, exaggerate, and distort distances, area, and direction in order to convey key information. Although the Houston and Texas Central Railway is the central focus of the map, it also delineates the railroad's integration with New York shipping and railroad magnate Charles W. Morgan's steamship lines, the Texas and New Orleans, the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, and other railroads.

The text and the related vignettes depicting the Mansard-roofed Travis County courthouse in Austin, the main building of Texas State Agricultural and Mechanical College (later Texas A&M University), and the Waco Suspension Bridge over the Brazos River were intended to promote the notion of Texas' "advancement...in matters of education, architecture, and transportation facilities". Incidentally, the 475-foot bridge was an engineering marvel when it opened in 1870, with cables and steelwork furnished by John A. Roebling and Son of New York – the company that later built the Brooklyn Bridge. The Texas bridge was funded by the Waco Suspension Bridge Company. The state legislature chartered this company in 1866, granting it a monopoly on bridge traffic across the Brazos within five miles of Waco for a period of twenty-five years following the date of the bridge's completion. The bridge still stands today, but is only open to pedestrian traffic.