Borden assisted in the original survey of Galveston. Working for the Galveston City Company, the surveying team laid out the east end of the island in a gridiron pattern, similar to major cities on the east coast of the US. Streets running the length of the island, from west to east, were named as avenues, according to the alphabet and in ascending order. Avenue A was the first avenue on the bay side, and this sequence continued through Avenue Q, running parallel to the Gulf of Mexico. Intersecting the avenues were numbered streets, starting with Eighth Street and continuing through Fifty-Eighth Street, which formed the western edge of the property owned by the Galveston City Company. In addition to surveying, he also he served the Galveston Town Company for 12 years as a secretary and agent. During that period, he helped sell 2,500 lots of land, for a total of $1,500,000.