As Craig and Courtney mentioned, the three of us were introduced to the ArcGIS software on Wednesday afternoon.  After learning a little bit about the software and its possible applications to our project, we settled on three general areas that our project might cover, split up into two maps.

As has already been mentioned, one of the maps would be of Houston and possibly have two layers.  One of the layers would encompass locations important to Dowling’s life in Houston and the other would cover evidence of his legacy that is still present in Houston today such as his statue in Hermann Park and Dowling Street.  From what we learned, the software could easily be used to generate a layered map like this.

The second map would be of the Sabine Pass area and help illustrate the battle.  Like Courtney, I also tried to do a little research to get a better understanding of the geographical layout of Sabine Pass now and when the battle took place.  I wasn’t able to find a significant amount of useful information, so I think our group will definitely have to put a little more time into researching that so we can settle on a concrete plan for what our map of the area might include.

I believe our group has a good start, but we definitely need to finalize some details for our project.  I think the archive of articles that our class has already digitized may come in handy for assisting in creating a list of points relevant to Dowling’s life and legacy.  I will also do some more research at Fondren into Dowling’s biographical information before our group meets again to try and determine some more locations that might be relevant to Dowling’s life.

I was unable to meet up with the group on Wednesday because of a prior commitment, but I was able to talk to the group and begin work on my portion of the project. At this point I believe that I will primarily be working on the map of the Sabine Pass site.

To do this part I have begun looking at maps and accounts of the battle trying to determine what actually happened, so that we can accurately chart the movements of Dick Dowling and the Davis Guards. I have begun looking at military history books in an attempt to find the best description of the battle. Also I have taken the steps to acquire topo-maps and navigational charts of the battle site so that we can get an accurate image of the geography of the battle site.

I believe that we still need to find finalized direction for the project, but we have a concrete start. Also I still need to go to the library and become familiar with the ArcGIS software. I think that the next time we meet all of the little things will get resolved and we will have a clear direction for the project.

As Craig explained, three of us went down and learned the basics of the ArcGIS software. Although we are not quite settled on the details, we decided that while we have this state-of-the-art software within our grasp, we should make two maps: one of Houston and one of the Sabine Pass site.

For both maps, we plan to mark pinpoints relevant to both Dowling’s life and the impact he has left through posthumous memorials. It occurs to me now that we could perhaps make these as two separate layers on the maps, or perhaps do them in different colors. So instead of looking at the map and seeing a confused jumble of pinpoints, you could toggle layers or pick out certain colors, and view only the footprints that Dowling himself left, OR the various memorials to him.

After looking at the Sabine Pass area, we realized we knew little about it, from the actual geography of the battle to the layout of the area today. So I took it upon myself to look further into it.

To start off, I found a map from the University of Texas Library that should help us get a better mental image of the battle itself.

As for the battleground today, it is now a historical site: here is its official website. It is quite a low-key historical site; I took a browse using the embedded Google map here and, to be honest, it seems like a whole lot of nothing. There is no visitor’s center or any place to buy refreshments. I couldn’t find an actual map of the park, and even poking around on the Google satellite imagery, couldn’t locate the monument statue and “interpretive pavilion” that are supposed to be there.

If anyone can help me locate where these memorials are placed, that would be great. Right now, I feel like I’m flailing around in the dark!