Sanborn Fire Maps Online
The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County's Virtual Library has full color Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps online, available for download. These large scale street plans include building outlines, property boundaries, and building use, dating back to 1904.
The Sanborn Maps were originally created for assessing fire insurance liability in urbanized areas in the United States. The Sanborn Company sent out legions of surveyors to record the building footprints and relevant details about these buildings in all major urbanized areas regarding their fire liability. The maps include detailed information regarding town and building information in approximately 12,000 U.S. towns and cities from 1867 to 1970. The detail is amazing; every building is shown and, in most cases, the name of the building's owner is also shown. You may find your ancestor's house and perhaps his or her place of business as well.
The maps are a highly useful resource for historical research, planning, preservation, genealogical research, sociological studies and research of urban growth.
At this time, the first volumes of the Insurance Maps of Cincinnati, Ohio are currently online and more will be made available as the collection is digitized.
You can view them at the following url:
http://virtuallibrary.cincinnatilibrary.org/VirtualLibrary/vl_Maps.aspx.
