Map collection at Tampa History Center displays thousands of antique maps

TAMPA, Fla. - These days our smartphones or onboard navigation systems tell us where we’re going, but we may not know where we’ve been. It’s not like a paper map. 

"The story that it tells is huge," said Tom Touchton as he held an antique paper map in the air. 

Touchton, 84, has collected interesting old maps for years. You could call him The Man of a Thousand Maps, but that would be a gross underestimation.

Years ago, Touchton donated his entire map collection to the Tampa Bay History Center. It’s become one premier map centers in America. 

You can always see some of them exhibited at the history center, but 5,000 maps have to be managed. 

"We only display a small portion of the map collection, so the rest of it has to be kept here," says Rodney-Kite Powell, director of the Touchton Map Library at the Tampa Bay History Center. 

The center holds a locked room with strict climate control that protects old paper from moisture, heat, insects, and thieves. 

"As we go away from using paper maps in our everyday lives, those paper maps become more important," says Kite-Powell.

They’ve just acquired what they believe is their most important map of all. It was made in 1588, showing St. Augustine Florida when the Spanish claimed the territory. 

"It is the first map on which a name and view of an American city appears," says Touchton. 

Neither he nor the History Center will say how much was paid for it, but they say it’s very valuable. Like other antique maps, it shows more than just directions, it shows history. 

Illustrations drawn on this map show how an attack on St. Augustine By Englishman Sir Francis Drake took place. 

"Queen Elizabeth asked Sir Francis Drake to go harass the Spanish," says Touchton.  

The map shows how Drake's fleet arrived at St. Augustine, landed soldiers, and then attacked and burned the city. It’s considered a masterpiece of map-making and there’s nothing hi-tech about it.

This map shows an attack on St. Augustine by Englishman Sir Francis Drake.

You can visit that very place in St. Augustine anytime, just punch it in your navigation system. However, as you listen to the voice giving directions, also look at Touchton’s maps. 

His may not guide you, turn by turn, to St. Augustine, but you'll know a lot more once you get there.