Mid-19th C. Local Maps

Mid-19th cent. Local maps

Mid-19th cent. Local maps

After about 1840, a new genre of maps of many towns and cities were published, and some rural townships—at scales larger than those of both the mid-century county wall maps and the Centennial-era county atlases, yet smaller than those of Sanborn maps.  

These large-scale local maps are rare today and known by relatively few.  

They were produced for a diverse audience that included local real estate and insurance agents, local officials, and the general public. They were themselves wall maps, and they contain much architectural information—especially for comparative purposes; they permit one neighborhood to be compared with others and should be used in conjunction with city directories where they are available.  These maps are also known for their architectural “vignettes,” views of contemporary buildings for which often no other imagery is known.