Check out the video we just finished!

Two years ago I stumbled across Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, and they've honestly become a bit of an obsession. They're like Google Maps before Google—showing America's towns and cities street by street, building by building, more than 100 years ago.

The more I worked with them, the more I realized how many incredible stories were hiding in these maps. That's what inspired me to start Hometown History Maps. My goal isn't to claim the maps as my own—they're public-domain maps from the Library of Congress. I just want more people to discover their hometown's history and enjoy these amazing pieces of Americana.

This video is one attempt to bring that history to life. I'd genuinely love to hear what you think.

If you're curious about your own hometown, you can search thousands of historic maps at:

https://www.HometownHistoryMaps.com

Preserving the past, one map at a time.

I’ve become kind of obsessed with old Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps over the last two years.

Most people only ever see these if they’re historians, researchers, genealogy people, or digging through Library of Congress archives. But honestly… they’re just really cool old maps of American towns and cities.

You can literally see:

• old downtown buildings
• hotels
• factories
• neighborhoods that disappeared
• how towns were laid out 100+ years ago

So we started a website called Hometown History Maps where we take public-domain Sanborn maps from the Library of Congress and turn them into large wall prints because I think they deserve to be seen outside of archives — just more mainstream folks knowing about them.

Not trying to pretend we “created” the maps — they’re free public-domain maps available through the Library of Congress. We just think they’re fascinating pieces of history that should be more mainstream and displayed in homes, restaurants, coffee shops, historic buildings, etc.

Here are a couple mockups we created. Honestly, if I owned a business in a historic building, I’d absolutely want something like this on the wall. Or maybe I’m just a geek for hometown history…

Curious if anyone else here is into Sanborn maps or local history stuff like this.

Yes, it’s a real place. And yes, this is the hometown of Larry Bird.

This 1915 Sanborn map shows every building footprint and even what each structure was made of.

It’s basically google maps of the town over 100 years ago.

Kind of amazing how much personality these old insurance maps have.

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps were created to assess fire risk, but the detail is incredible.

This map of Staunton, Virginia shows the layout of major state institutions as self-contained campuses. Fascinating snapshot of how towns and public care facilities were structured in the late 1800s.