Some great resources can be found looking at these maps to see where the railroads were. I live in Sussex County NJ which is basically the land of former rail lines. So many were around here at one time.
Anyway, if interested, have a peak. You can select the state and/or town that interests you. I downloaded the one for Branchville, NJ and printed it at Walgreens for $10 (after a $10 coupon was applied). The frame at Walmart cost me $12.
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Very interesting, Frank. Thanks for posting.
As a postscript, Sanborn maps were located at 117 Broadway,NYC later in Pelham N.Y....I have used them many times,chock full of local history very useful for research......
Great collection but some are still under copyright.
Sadly, there are none for much of the city of Philadelphia for example.
These are indeed excellent resources for history and finding out how things used to be arranged.
Not all of them are in the LOC as far as I know. Some are preserved in state libraries, university libraries, or local historical societies.
Thanks for posting this! In just a few short minutes, I was able to learn a lot of local RR and industrial history from my hometown area!
Andy
Branchville, end of the line for the DL&W Sussex branch.
@BillYo414 posted:These are indeed excellent resources for history and finding out how things used to be arranged.
Not all of them are in the LOC as far as I know. Some are preserved in state libraries, university libraries, or local historical societies.
From what I read Volume 25 of the Sanborn Maps will come off copyright next year and into the public domain. This will hopefully fill in the missing online references that have holes due to copyright.
One could spend weeks digging at Sanborn maps to get a good view of what railroads and industry in the US used to be like. A treasure trove of history.
One caveat is that sometimes railroad yards or congested railroad areas are simply labeled as "full of tracks".
@Rule292 that's exciting stuff! Hopefully I can find some new stuff for my local area.
The Sanborn maps are funny like that. On the one hand, I have seen tremendous detail...then I have seen a complete lack of detail. It's interesting.
They are really a rabbit hole though. I can look at the for hours. I'm so glad they were produced and saved!
There was an amusement park—“Wheeling’s Coney Island”—that was wrecked by the 1913 flood. Between that and the floods in 1936 and 1937, the island itself disappeared. Were it not for the Sanborn maps, there would be no way to know it existed.
There are no known pictures in spite of the big opening day ceremonies, many RR and steel mill picnics, riverboat excursions…I keep hoping there’s a W&LE or Wheeling Steel Top Mill picture somewhere with the island in the background.
A friend once acquired two fairly complete sets of Baltimore City maps, 1895 and 1905. We looked up the house that I lived in back then, it was not on the 1895 but was on the 1905. MY place was about twenty years older than I thought. Also we noted a flowing spring located just up the hill from my place. It was built over sometime in the 1920s.
I have been using the Sanborn maps to develop my model railroad of downtown Boston. Fortunately the maps are extremely detailed and seem to show every track and building that the railroad served. I reference the maps along with old photos to piece together 1950s Boston.
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