What's in It
Who Has Access
Applications
Instructional Use
Using the Interface
- Overview of the Search Strategies
- Map Description
- Browing Feature
- Browse by Date
- Browse by City/County
- Place Name Search
- Keyword
Case Studies
The Digital Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps document in 40,000 map sheets, the built environment of Ohio towns and cities from the 1867 until 1970. The Sanborn Company was instrumental in creating and providing maps for fire insurance companies and underwriters covering approximately 12,000 United States towns and cities. For the purpose of assessing insurance liability, Sanborn sent out surveyors to record a town's building footprints, and other details relevant to fire insurance. The Sanborn Company systematically gathered information about residential, commercial, and civic buildings, number of stories, location of fire walls, property lines, addresses, names and widths of roads, and natural features such as rivers and canals, railroad corridors and locations of water supplies such as sprinkler systems (symbol=S), water mains, and fire hydrants. Mapping and documenting the built environment for specific towns was done over a period of years. As urban areas developed and grew into suburbs or towns, the maps and their volumes were added onto or created anew to reflect the changes. Buildings, whose functions changed or were demolished, were pasted over on the older volumes' map sheets with new drawings of buildings. Dates of map revisions appear in each volume indicating the earliest and the latest surveys as in examples from the digital maps: “Columbus, Franklin County (1921-Dec. 1951 vol. 1, 1921-Oct.1951).” This indicates that the December 1921 Volume One was revised in October of 1951.
Frequently a town might have several volumes of maps documented over the years; these should all be consulted in order to observe the changes in the built environment.
The finely drawn and lithographed Sanborn Maps were meticulously hand-colored to indicate building materials, for example, gray represents iron, pink for brick, yellow for wood frame, blue for stone, and brown for fire proof construction. Frequently buildings had a combination of materials, which were noted on the map sheet. The map scale for most of the Sanborns is 50 feet to an inch and dimensions of original sheets are 21 x 25 inches. A key to the symbols used in the maps appears on each master sheet.
Each volume of printed and bound Sanborn Maps was dated with the year and a number in Roman numerals; the volumes were organized in a straightforward manner, with an elaborately engraved title page, followed by an index listing streets and addresses, and a “Specials” index recording names of churches, schools, industrial plants, stores, etc. There is also a master index sheet in each volume indicating the map of the area and the map sheet numbers for each area of the town mapped, usually from four to six blocks. The key indexes were also colored in.
There are several original collections of Ohio Sanborn Maps: at the Cleveland Public Library Map Room and at the Map Library of Kent State University. The Library of Congress Geography and Map Division holds the most complete collection encompassing the 17,000 United States towns and cities produced by the Sanborn Company over the period of their printing from 1867 until 1970.
Although the Digital Sanborn Maps were produced from black and white microfilm, they are valuable for research in most areas.
The Sanborn Maps are accessible through the Ohio Public Library Information Network, OPLIN, and at OhioLINK member academic institutions.
Historical research: To locate and identify buildings and neighborhoods; study transportation routes for railroads, rivers, canals, and roads; locate buildings related to historical events and figures; study the growth and decline of neighborhoods or commercial and industrial districts. Sanborn Maps are used successfully with other research materials such as historical photographs, real estate maps, and other historical maps.
Architectural research/design/urban planning/historic preservation: To locate and study materials of buildings and their sites; analyze various building types like churches, factories, houses, schools, hotels, etc. Sanborn Maps can be used as a tool to design complementary structures of an older town's fabric, as a means of site analysis, or as a tool for historic preservation and conservation of existing buildings.
Ethnographers/Demographers/Sociologists/Urban Geographers: Study various communities of special groups of immigrants, minorities, population shifts, and development of community institutions like churches, clubs, and schools. Sanborn Maps can be used in conjunction with census data, and city and commercial directories.
Environmental engineers: To identify unknown hazardous waste sites and trace the exposure of the environment, the ground water and soil, to toxic materials such as petroleum storage or arsenic-based materials.
Genealogical research: The addresses and real estate subdivisions, the names of commercial establishments, all provide clues to the work places, dwellings, and history of one's ancestors.
The Sanborn digital maps can be used for individual research and classroom instruction. The changes in a town and the built environment are recorded in detail and can provide the basis for a number of projects, which can be visually presented in the classroom.
The study of American literature, based on novels and travel journals which describe typical Nineteenth Century American towns, can be better understood by studying maps and their Record Descriptions which contain references to places in terms that are now arcane in American English usage.
Architectural design students can use the Sanborn Maps to analyze various building types and functions exemplified by cathedrals, synagogues, theatres, hotels, residences, schools, laundries, bathhouses, department stores, factories, fire houses, etc.
The Digital Sanborn Maps can be used for a variety of reference questions and research projects for any academic level as well as for independent researchers. As with the printed maps, researchers and librarians will find the same questions asked about the Digital Sanborn Maps. The most frequent questions are of an historical and genealogical nature.
Overview of the search strategies: You can search the Digital Sanborn Map database by using Keywords of any location or town or even the name of a building. You can also search by the Place -- county and/or town or city. The searches can result in a wide variety of possible hits, but if you have one piece of information, a clue, you will be more likely to be successful. You can set the viewing areas of the map by adjusting the pixel and zoom ranges. You should be able to print and/or copy and download a map onto a diskette and use it in another file. When setting your pixels and zoom ranges, you must experiment and find what is comfortable for you, although some researchers might prefer a 50% zoom with pixels set at 1024 x 768; these settings help the researcher view the entire map sheet.
Map Description: The Description record for each map indicates the scope of that map, such as the names of streets, buildings, businesses, schools, churches, etc. Street addresses are given in brackets following the street name. But in some instances the street numbers do not appear on the selected map…and some street numbers may be difficult to read. One also has to be aware that street names and their numbers sometimes change. It is good to have a street map handy when doing research of a particular town. This helps with orienting yourself to directions as well as the layout of streets and location of landmarks. Map sheets too, done over time, are not standardized as far as the north/south directions; this may be somewhat disorienting when looking for a site since another map from a different date of the same block might be organized in a different direction. Note particular landmarks, street intersections, or buildings, since they provide clues to help you locate the information you seek.
The Description record, compiled by the Library of Congress staff from the Sanborn indexes, provides vital information about the scope of the map, but without standardized terms. Searching proper names is recommended, since abbreviations used are not consistent or often searchable.
The Browsing Feature: Browse allows you in a general way to scan the Date or the City/County Index. This is a quick way to find all maps from a given date, or all maps for a given location. Click on the index to browse; then select the set you want to retrieve. The browsing feature is almost like having the volumes of maps in front of you, and from them you can note the volume numbers and dates for later reference.
Browse by Date: If you know the date and name of the building, search in the date index for a town like Chillicothe and check the volume for 1884, March. Note the organization of the volumes: the title sheet, index pages, and master key map page showing the contents of each volume. Note also the description for each map page and familiarize yourself with the terms, organization of streets, and often arcane names like “livery,” “beer garden,” “blacksmith,” and the abbreviations for streets, roads, and names of churches, or businesses.
Browse by City/County: The browse feature allows you to find the number of maps and years done for a specific City/County; you can jump around in the index by putting in numbers of where you might find what you are looking for. For example, find the town of Ada in Hardin Country and note the dates for the mapping of this town. Search for other towns of interest and familiarize yourself with the contents of the volumes. Try to see how each map differs over the years; print them out and study them to compare and contrast the town's growth or decline.
Place Name Search: Highlight Place, type search word(s) in the box, and click the Search button (or press the Enter key). You can also do combination searches using + (and), OR, ! (not). Examples:
Simple Place search, sort by date:
Fostoria
You can Browse this important glass manufacturing town by date and note the developments of the town and its industries. Note how many volumes and their dates that have been produced for this town.
Search Place for a County and sort by City:
Trumbull
Cities in Trumbull County will appear alphabetically; make your selection from them.
Place Search using + connector:
Cuyahoga + Bedford
Note: Search results in only 6 hits because Bedford was mapped separately 6 times. Try another search strategy as follows.
Keyword Search:
Bedford
Note: Search results in 116 hits because towns were often combined in Sanborn volumes as entities of larger cities like Cleveland; note keyword search results in all terms for Bedford found in Description records like street names, business names, etc. Towns or villages which are part of a larger city and do not have a separate volume are not available in the Place Search interface; if you know a place exists, but cannot locate it in the Place Search, try a Keyword Search, or do a Keyword Search using +, with the largest nearby City: Keyword is the more inclusive search, but requires a lot of browsing in the Description records to locate the desired map.
Keyword Search, city with street names:
Cleveland + ninety + seventh + w
Note: This type of search works well for a very specific search in a large city when you may wish to view only one street. It will retrieve records for more than one date. Sanborn's practice is to spell out the names of numbered streets in its indexes.
NOT, eliminate a Place you do not want, sort by city:
Cuyahoga + !Cleveland
Note: You only want to view Cuyahoga County towns, but not Cleveland because it
includes many map sheets and you want only smaller towns in Cuyahoga County.
OR, Place Search:
Brecksville OR Hudson
Note: You want to search for two historical Western Reserve towns in Northeast Ohio for purposes of comparing their town plans. Remember: some towns were not mapped by the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company for various reasons; unincorporated towns and rural areas might not have been mapped; among the unmapped Ohio towns and villages include Burton, Kirtland, and Hunting Valley.
KEYWORD: The Keyword search includes any word in a map description such as city, county, and “Specials;” these include street names, addresses, buildings, businesses, schools, churches, etc. Sometimes street numbers can be included in a Keyword search for a successful “hit.”
To find a specific area or building within a city or county, use the Keyword search and combine the place name with a street, building name, etc. Search proper names such as street names. If you use abbreviations in a Keyword search they will not give you a “hit.” Words like “company,” (Co.), “railroad” (R.R.), and “Episcopal” (Episc.) are usually abbreviated. Sometimes church names are abbreviated.
If your first search is not successful you may need to form an alternate search, or search by Place name and then browse for the specific map area you want. Searches cannot be combined or refined as in other online databases. Through persistence and different search strategies the information you seek will eventually become apparent. The simpler the search the better; once you get a number of hits you can browse through the Description record to locate exactly what you need.
If you intend to consult a particular index or other map frequently, make a note of the "identifier" which appears as the last line of the Full Record. Entering this unique number as a Keyword takes you directly that specific sheet. "Reel" refers to the Chadwyck-Healey microfilm reel, the middle four digits represent the number assigned by the Library of Congress to a particular city or town. The last five digits are a sequential number assigned to a particular digital image and do not correspond to the original Sanborn plate number.
The following three Case Studies use the Keyword search feature to locate relevant Sanborn Maps.
1. CASE STUDY:
Identify Historic Photograph of Columbus, Ohio city block.
A student needs information for his urban history class about a city block in Columbus, Ohio; he needs to write a paper and identify the time period of the photograph and the uses of buildings and changes in the city block over the last seventy-five years.
Look for clues in the photograph such as names on the buildings; do a combined “+” Keyword search such as “Goodale + Columbus” based on the name “Goodale European Hotel” visible on the side of a building. Locate a Sanborn Map showing Goodale Hotel (Record #35, 1921-Dec. 1951 vol. 1, 1921-Oct. 1951). The hotel is located on West Goodale near the intersection of North High Street; zoom in on the Sanborn Map and identify the street address as 14-20 West Goodale; search for all Sanborn maps of Columbus with the West Goodale address; find matches that show the Park Hotel at the site on maps from 1891, and 1901; the name of hotel changes to Goodale on the 1921 and 1951 maps. Hotel name changed between the 1901 and 1921 mapping of the city block; it must have been close to the turn-of-the-century and before automobiles were used, but trolley cars are in use as evidenced by the photograph.
To find more information about the block of West Goodale, use old city or telephone directories for addresses of particular businesses; consult historic photograph collections and other sources which can provide more information and verify names of businesses, family names, residence addresses, and factory locations. Using a city directory might reveal the exact date the Park Hotel changed hands to become the Goodale European Hotel (sometime between 1901 and 1921), and perhaps the student will find the approximate date of the historic Columbus photograph.
2. CASE STUDY:
Family genealogy research based on photographs.
A library patron wants to locate more evidence of her great aunt's family history; she brings two photographs; a group graduation photo on the steps of a church with foreign writing on the back; she uses a dictionary to identify the language as either Slovak or Czech; other information includes the year of the photo, 1926, of a graduation at a St. Martins Church taken by “Adkins Studio, Cleveland, Ohio; the name on the back of photo is “Maria Tatarko.”
Use Keyword search “St. Martin” to locate a St. Martins Church on Sanborn Map at Scovill Ave. S.E. near 24th Street [Cleveland, Ohio (1912-1913 vol. 2, 1912)].
Advise the library patron to inquiry about church records at the Office of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. She discovers the records were transferred to a new church with the same name in Maple Heights, built after the original St. Martins was demolished in 1960 for urban renewal. Patron finds from the church registry that her great aunt Maria Tatarko graduated the eighth grade from St. Martins School in 1926, and that the family lived first on Marion Street near the church then moved to Nevada Street near 86th Street in Cleveland. The latter address of 8615 Nevada is confirmed from a family photograph taken in front of a house with the address visible; and the Tatarko family residence is located on a Sanborn Map by doing a keyword search “Cleveland + Nevada” and browsing for the street number that matches [Record #2, Cleveland, Ohio (1912-1913 vol. 5, 1913)].
3. CASE STUDY:
Research the automobile industry in Cleveland.
A university faculty member is writing a book about early automobile manufacturing in Cleveland, Ohio and is looking for locations of manufacturing plants on Sanborn Maps.
A Keyword search was recommended, using the name of the automobile manufacturer with the word “motor” since it was found, by perusing the Description records of the Digital Sanborn Maps, that “motor” was the term most often used to describe early Twentieth Century automobile manufacturing. The Keyword search was successful as in the following examples:
“Peerless Motor,” (3 hits); “Chandler Motor,” (8 hits); “Baker Motor,” (2 hits).