Digital Sanborn Maps, 1867-1970 Help Page
Founded in 1867 by D. A. Sanborn, the Sanborn Map Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years, repeatedly mapping towns and cities as they changed. The maps provide a wealth of information, such as building outline, size and shape. Produced for over a century, more than 660,000 Sanborn maps chart the growth and development of more than 12,000 American towns and cities. Sanborn maps are large-scale plans of a city or town, drawn at a scale of 50 feet to an inch. They were created to assist fire insurance companies as they assessed the risk associated with insuring a particular property. The maps list street blocks and building numbers including numbers in use at the time the map was made and previous numbers. The library has access to the ARKANSAS maps only.
