Culver 1906 Sanborn Fire Map Index  

Fire insurance maps are the most detailed historical records of the urban landscape. From 1790 to 1961, nearly every U.S. town and city with populations of 2,000 or more, had been surveyed. During this timeframe, over 13,000 U.S. cities were mapped by fire insurance map publishers. Shown on these maps, sometimes in great detail, are virtually every building, man-made structure and business standing at the time the survey was made.

Initially, the maps were known only to a handful of fire insurance underwriters. But by 1937, practically every insurance company in the country relied on the maps to balance the financial risks of the properties that they insured. Today, although the uses for fire insurance maps have grown far beyond their original purpose, few people are aware of the wide range of applications for which they are being used.

Environmental assessment, architectural renovation and reconstruction, and corporate research are but a few of the uses drawing professionals and hobbyists to the pages of these intriguing maps.

While the legacy of the maps is quickly becoming the diversity of applications for which they can be used, the history of the maps and those who made them is one of the best-kept cartographic secrets.

This set of Sandborn maps contained 2 pages - These are PDF links and require that you have adobe reader to be able to read them and take a while to load up - they are large - but they can be enlarged to read - I found 400% was ideal with out loss of clarity for research work. These require a PDF program:

Page One - Main downtown; and section on Ice house at the south end of town.
Page two - Academy, Lakeshore Drive (Scott) (partial); Main Street South of Madison (Partial); and Mill Street East

These pages contain crops from these maps - they will also be incorporated into other pages on the site as a reference tool:

Academy

Scott Avenue now Lakeshore Dr.

Downtown Scott - Madison

Madison - Miill / Partial Buisiness - Residential

Status Stamps appear on the maps:

Sanborn Map Company Copyright, 1906 by the Sanborn Mapr Company, 11 Broadway, New York Population 700 Prevailing Winds S.W.; WAter Facilities Not Good Nor Steam & No Hand Engine No Independent Hose Cart No Hook & Ladder Truck. Culver, Marshall co. Indiana February 1909 Scale 50ft. to an inch.

NOTE: Fire Depart. Volunteer 14 men. Fire Alarm: Church Bell. Streets Gradeds and Unpaved. No. Public Light. Library of Congress Two Copies Received May 2, 1905 Copyright Entry May 2 1906 Class 2 XXcNo. 9257; elsewhere is stamped Map Division May 9 1906 Library of Congress.

The key to the color code and symbols used on the map.

There are Sanbron maps for Indiana as follows - Includes 91 cities dated 1933 - 1980 (13 reels). ISBN 1-55655-340-4. This was LexisNexis® For Academic & Faculty Librarians - UPA Collections; Research Collections in Urban History & Urban Studies Fire Insurance Maps from the Sanborn Map Company Archives: Late 19th Century to 1994.

The Sanborn maps are also at Indiana University Bloomington; insight into the Sanborn Fire maps can be found at the Library of Congress from the Berkley University website.

Sanborn Fire Maps 1906, 1914, 1924, 1937 (dtd 1924) Sanborn Map Company 1935 Jamboree Drive Suite 100 Colorado Springs, CO 80920. Maps for 1866-1923 Contact: The Library of Congress, public record, no copyright permission required. Maps for 1924-1979 Contact: Sanborn Sister Company: EDR or Enviormental Data Resources Inc. 440 Wheelers Farms Road Milford, CT 06461; Maps for 1980-2007 Contact: Sanborn Mapping & Geographic 629 Fifth Ave Ste 3 Pelham, NY 10803

Sanborn Use Agreement