Sanborn Historic Maps

Dataset Basics

Founded in 1867, the Sanborn Map and Publishing Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years. The Fire Insurance Maps aided insurance agents in estimating fire insurance liabilities in urban areas. The maps provide a detailed account of urban development and change in communities during the early twentieth century. Sanborn maps are large-scale (1:600) and depict street layouts, building footprints, building materials, utility lines, street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. As urban areas expanded, the Sanborn Company created new maps to document changes and update their records. Many Indiana urban areas have multiple map editions or volumes such as Indianapolis. For a particular publication year, Sanborn divided large city maps into multiple maps covering smaller areas. The first map in each volume serves as a key to the locations of the other maps in the same volume. Sanborn provided updates to specific volumes as maps to be pasted on top of the old paper maps to reduce expense and preserve accuracy. The Sanborn Company reached a peak in production during the 1930s and reduced its efforts to isolated revisions in the 1960s. Sanborn produced Indiana maps between 1883 and 1966.

The Sanborn Company designated the Indiana University Herman B Wells Library Map Collections as the repository for the original Indiana Sanborn paper maps. A joint project between Indiana University and the Historical Information Gatherers, Inc., provides digital color versions of the Sanborn maps to the Indiana Spatial Data Portal (ISDP). A 2011 IndianaView grant funded the archiving of the digital maps on the ISDP.

In each archive, the filename of each image includes (1) the 5 digit HIG code used to identify the location (2) the year the map was created/updated and (3) additional information regarding map location and volume.

The files are archived by file type and year. To see an inventory of the maps in ISDP, download the metadata archive for that file type. The archive includes a .csv listing all of the files available for that file type with their filename, city, county, and other relevant information.

Available Datasets:

Sanborn Historic Maps (TIFF)

Founded in 1867, the Sanborn Map and Publishing Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years. The Fire Insurance Maps aided insurance agents in estimating fire insurance liabilities in urban areas. The maps provide a detailed account of urban development and change in communities during the early twentieth century. Sanborn maps are large-scale (1:600) and depict street layouts, building footprints, building materials, utility lines, street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. Sanborn produced Indiana maps between 1883 and 1966. Currently, all maps produced by 1925 are in the public domain.

Sanborn Historic Maps (GeoTIFF): Wayne County

Founded in 1867, the Sanborn Map and Publishing Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years. The Fire Insurance Maps aided insurance agents in estimating fire insurance liabilities in urban areas. The maps provide a detailed account of urban development and change in communities during the early twentieth century. Sanborn maps are large-scale (1:600) and depict street layouts, building footprints, building materials, utility lines, street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. Sanborn produced Indiana maps between 1883 and 1966. Currently, all maps produced by 1925 are in the public domain.

Sanborn Historic Maps (TIFF): Richmond 1886

Founded in 1867, the Sanborn Map and Publishing Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years. The Fire Insurance Maps aided insurance agents in estimating fire insurance liabilities in urban areas. The maps provide a detailed account of urban development and change in communities during the early twentieth century. Sanborn maps are large-scale (1:600) and depict street layouts, building footprints, building materials, utility lines, street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. Sanborn produced Indiana maps between 1883 and 1966. This dataset includes the maps from Richmond, IN, from 1886 with a combined shapefile showing their locations as a mosaicked image.

Use Restrictions:

All maps between 1883 and 1927 are public domain documents. Maps created after January 1, 1928, have copyright restrictions. These may be used for academic purposes. To request a digital copy of a restricted map, please contact UITS GIS.

Available Files:

There are 10,109 public domain maps and 1,408 copyright restricted maps representing 305 different Indiana locations from 1886-1927 (no maps are available for 1926). Each map image is available in either PDF or uncompressed TIFF format. The metadata includes lists in text format of public domain and copyright restricted maps and map location boundaries in ESRI shapefile format.

The metadata includes both a black and white and a color symbol key in jpg format.

Dataset Contact Information:

Indiana University Libraries
Indiana University Wells Library 250B
Bloomington, Indiana 47405
Phone: 812-855-6924
Email: libgimms@indiana.edu