- Wikipedia will in great detail tell everything about the company history.
- Pre/Post 1900’s found cities contained so many buildings built of wood.
- Due to fire damage in that era, these maps are called Fire Insurance Maps.
- Legitimate surveyors did the field work and besides dimensions other information was noted. i.e. if a plant had a night watchman, type of construction etc.
- While I cannot attest to this, these maps were so detailed, they were depended on as if it was the work of a local surveyor.
- For sure they are a treasure trove of history. Street names can change over the years, but not it’s dimension. Types of commercial buildings long gone are recorded.
- As for RR’s. I have had access to an original book for my city. My interest in the two RR’s we had crossover here are of tremendous interest.
- Since a city can take several pages of maps to be covered in total, I copied each page that had RR information.
- Shock. With all the bragging about accuracy, some “loose ends” (spurs, yard tracks) of trackage did NOT match exactly other pages that should have matched. Note: “loose ends”. I would think only streets and buildings were measured. Loose end tracks had no “Fire Value” thus they could have been “freehanded. endmrw0201251456
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These Sanborn Fire Maps provide great historical pretext. While many were easily downloaded as “free internet files”, as of late “many have fees for download”.
I don’t know where the “fee” access is, but some state governments have free access due to citizens tax moneys. I know in the past MY state did not, But Missouri DID. Not only the Sanborn maps of cities, but commerce data. A small fledging RR that wanted to go to Memphis (never made it) but did operate in the state, HAD TO CHARGE unreal high rates. It’s all there in the records. BTW the interchage of RR traffic was shown on Sanborn map. Two RR’s in Cardwell, MO, one lasted a long while Paragould South East (PSE Cotton Belt short line took fuel to Blythville Air Force Base). While even the PSE no longer exists, the other that TRIED was the Paragould to Memphis RR. and nicknamed the Pa and Ma. Tnx for the read of post. endmrw0205251305
No prob, I had used these Sanborn Maps to determine original shop and building locations for the Interurban Sacramento Northern. Additionally, I have used them in Geneaology to find buildings that ancestors lived in that no longer exist. Yes, they are detailed, often showing property owners names, purpose and use of buildings, and features within buildings.
I really like the detail on the Sanborn maps, but I find them very, very difficult to navigate. For the most part, I am trying to hone in on the six downtown Chicago passenger stations and the surrounding freight houses. It is a struggle. It seems that the actual locations don’t match the actual map.
Let me see if I can post an example. Here is a Sanford map of the relevant part of Chicago. When you click on one of the numbered areas, a different area comes up. Unless I am doing something wrong, the indexing is in error.
Rich
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Well, maybe navigation is not the best word. What I mean is that when I look at a partial map of Chicago for example, and then I select the numbered area that I want to view, it is not the exact area that I expected.
Here is the link that I have tried to use with little success except for wasting a lot of time selecting random numbered areas:
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Using your link on an iPhone 14 running iOS 18.5, I get a high-resolution map. Clicking on this map does nothing, and does not ‘zoom centered’ on the clicked area (which is indeed one expected method for map navigation). But I have floating white controls at the top of the visible screen, including a + to enlarge, and I can easily get down to discriminating smudges and variations in the printed line widths; these are very sharp and well-focused scans. I can recenter the map on an area of interest between ‘enlargements’.
The point that I was trying to make back in February is that the Sanborn maps are difficult to navigate because the indexing system seems impossible to use to find specific locations.
The actual device used doesn’t seem to matter whether it is a desktop, laptop, smart phone, or tablet.
As an example, let’s say that I am looking for Dearborn Station. When I click on the link that I provided back in February, I get the following image.
From this image, I can then close in on my area of interest. I know that Dearborn Station is located at the intersection of Polk Street and Dearborn Street, as seen in the following map.
This suggests that I want to find Image No. 82. But when I index Image 82, I get this.
That’s not Dearborn Station. That is LaSalle Street Station located at the intersection of LaSalle Street and VanBuren Street, a couple of blocks northwest of Dearborn Station.
In fact, by random searching, I was able to find the map of Dearborn Station at Image No. 92, as seen in the following map.
In the upper right corner of the map, you can see the number 82, the Image No. that I was initially looking for.
So, it seems that there is no correlation between the broader map produced by clicking on the original link and the actual image unless I am simply misusing the index.
Rich
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There’s a similar issue with book-scanned PDFs that have not been carefully cross-referenced in metadata. The ‘page number’ in the PDF viewer is referencing scan or image count, which can and usually does have nothing to do with chapter or page numbering for the physical printed volume. (I worked on an API in the late '80s that would assist in finding physical pages, but it was not standardized.)
So you jump to a particular ‘page’ in the PDF and mouse around to find a page number, then estimate the offset and lather, rinse, repeat… or use scroll or page up/down and wait, wait, wait for things to render.
Now, part of the problem with the Sanborn images is that they aren’t sequential as in page images from a book; the nominal order may differ if they were scanned left to right vs. top to bottom (I.e. in row vs. column order). So “image 82” has nothing whatsoever to do with block 82 on the Sanborn original plan, and as you discovered there is no guarantee you’ll find it without some effectively random searching image after image. There is probably such a thing out there, produced by a university or agency, but requiring advanced Google-fu or paid access of some kind or other to find. That is a battle I fought and lost decades ago, and I think the world is sadly worse off as a consequence…
The common way this is addressed with maps drawn to a common scale is to have a grid of locations on a master large scale, then subdivide and assign the ‘images’ to grid locations. Either flat-file or relational style queries will not produce garbage even if the ‘key’ system originally used (idiotically) tracks scan order only.
As noted, though, Sanborn maps may not be drawn to a common scale. Now, had the original scan team realized this, they could have calibrated the images to have a common scale reference and adjusted the scanner so a common dpi resolution would correspond to actual 1:1 scale. My suspicion is that the scans were done by liberal-arts volunteers more concerned with lighting, color, and image resolution than with intercomparable scale…
The usual ‘fix’ for this is to build a finding aid, which in this context would cross-reference the Sanborn navigation with the various images – in your case Sanborn 82 would simple be cross-referenced with file image 92, and you could easily reference
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I had a bit of fun looking through the referenced archive of Sanborn maps when this thread first showed up. I was curious about the layout of the the V&T’s Minden branch trackage in Carson City - in looking over the maps I ran across the location of the high school in 1909, which appears to have been the same building where I spent most of my time in 7th grade.
That probably makes more sense than my suspicion that the scans were done by recently hired MBA grads in intern positions. 
Rich
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Where did you spend the rest of your time? 
Rich
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I understand your frustration. That’s the bad news. The good news is you finally got what you wanted. Really neat that you got to see what you wanted.
In my case (no big deal) I wanted to match pages of RR sidings/spurs all over town. I had the original Sanborn Map book, a local insurance man bought it for business in his day.
I sketched each page that had my subject covered. They didn’t match. Since streets, buildings, etc. are so acurately measured/marked. I expected the same accuracy in my search. My only rationale was on these map pages they were all on the edges and didn’t get paid much attention to when transcribed from survey notes.
Really disappointing (hope I haven’t told this in the first Sanborn thread) was a Real Estate map from UP. The yard originally built here in town I remember as a kid. Roundhouse, many yard tracks, scales etc. locos kicking cars.
They, UP, have the LATEST with engineering drawings telling WHEN tracks were taken out! Then the map being up to date, had white out to erase the locations. The map only showed what presently exists. On the bright side, The UP map showed the competing RR also in town. And this showed ALL of their tracks. They don’t exist now, but I have record of their existance. 
regards mike endmrw0608252256
What’s that old saying?
All’s well that ends well!
Rich
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I should note that “most of the time” referred to time spent at school. Out of the 30 one hour periods per week, all but 4 were spent in “the old building”. Getting to/from school that year entailed crossing where the V&T main line (Washington St) and house track (Caroline St) were located before the V&T was abandoned in 1950.
Navigating around the Sanborn maps website was a pain, but still interesting.
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