This is a guide to freely available fire insurance maps online.
​Fire insurance maps date from 1867 to the present and depict t
he commercial, industrial, and residential sections of tens of thousands of cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Maps were designed to assist fire insurance agents to determine the degree of hazard for a property. The maps show the size, shape, and construction of dwellings, commercial buildings, and factories as well as fire walls, locations of windows and doors, sprinkler systems, and types of roofs. The maps also indicate widths and names of streets, property boundaries, building use, house and block numbers, and location of fire hydrants. Today, these maps serve as valuable resources for historians, planners, preservationists, genealogists and urban geographers.
Wisconsin Sanborn maps may be viewed in black and white online (with UWM log in) via the Digital Sanborn Maps ProQuest site
1894 and 1910 Milwaukee Sanborns may be view at the Sanborn Maps of Milwaukee Digital Collection
To learn more about the Sanborn map sheet above, visit the AGS Library blog: Hubbard Park Beer Garden & Amusement Park, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
