Hidden inside the Tampa Bay History Center is one of the Southeast’s great research treasures: the Touchton Map Library, home to some 8,000 maps, charts and atlases — including the largest collection of Florida maps anywhere.
From hand-colored Spanish charts of a half-imagined peninsula to railroad maps that sold the state lot by lot, the collection charts how Florida was drawn, claimed and dreamed for five centuries. Rotating selections appear in the History Center’s galleries, and researchers can book the reading room to handle cartography that defined an era.
For map lovers, it’s a pilgrimage site; for everyone else, it’s the surprise favorite room of the museum.
Every Floridian’s hometown appears here somewhere, usually wearing a wildly optimistic border. Come find yours.
