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Maps
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
The Sanborn Maps® are large-scale detailed maps depicting the commercial, industrial, and residential sections of Richmond. The maps were designed by surveyor D.A. Sanborn in 1866 to assist help fire insurance agents to determine the fire risk for each property The company's surveyors meticulously documented the structural evidence of urbanization - building-by-building, block-by-block, neighborhood-by-neighborhood, community-by-community.
Sanborn Maps® illustrate in outline form the site, size, shape, construction and building material of dwellings, commercial buildings, and factories. Details of buildings include the location and number of windows and doors, style and composition of roofs, wall thickness. The maps also indicate building use, sidewalk and street widths, layout and names, property boundaries, distance between buildings, house and block numbers.
Sanborn Maps® are colored keyed. For instance, stone buildings are painted blue, brick pink, wood yellow, and iron gray. Until 1911, the maps were handmade and hand colored. After that, corrections and amendments were pasted on top every few years. It is sometimes informative to shine a flashlight through a page. One can then see structures that existed earlier at a given site. The paper Sanborn maps are useful in determining if a certain room or porch was part of the original structure or a later addition. Photocopying from the paper maps is strictly prohibited.
The following years are available in paper:
R 912.7726 S19
Sanborn Map Co. Insurance Maps of Richmond, Indiana. 1909.
*Published in 1909, this edition has paste-ups through July 1952.
R 912.7726 S19 1956
Sanborn Map Co. Insurance Maps of Richmond, Indiana. 1956-1972.
*Published in 1956, this edition has paste-ups through September 1972.
The following years are available on microfilm for Richmond, Indiana:
Reel #25
- 1886
- 1891
- 1896
- 1901
- 1909
- 1937 (changes were pasted on to the 1909 map)
- 1950 (changes were pasted on to the 1909 map)
Reel #32
- 1955-56 (Changes were pasted on to the map bringing it up to 1970)
The following years are available on microfilm for Cambridge City, Indiana
Reel #3- 1886
- 1892
- 1898
- 1908
- 1913
- 1928
The following years are available on microfilm for Centerville, Indiana
- 1896
- 1913
- 1928
The Sanborn maps on microfilm may be copied. The microfilm rolls are not in color, however, and the informative color keying is lost. By looking at your house and neighborhood in several of these maps, you can develop a sense of when your house was built and how the neighborhood has developed . Check to see when your house appears on maps. If you find the house on an 1893 map, but not one for 1888, the house was probably built during that five-year span. Make sure your street appears on the earlier map, though, before you jump to that conclusion. The Sanborn maps primarily covered the area within the city limits, so it could be that your house existed, but was outside of the area covered by the earlier map.
Atlases
Atlases are located on the atlas table in the Reference Services Department.
Lake, D. J. Atlas of Wayne County, Indiana. 1874.
Rerick Brothers, Richmond, Indiana. The County of Wayne, Indiana. 1893.
Plat Maps
These maps date from various years between 1963 and 2001 and indicate property owners. They are kept in the top drawer of the map case in the Reference Services Department.
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