More on Abingdon Branch

[NW Mailing List]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 10:26 AM, Paul Mandelkern wrote:

>

> If you are looking for Sanborn maps of Virginia cities and towns,

> several libraries in Virginia have the entire state set that you can

> search for free including the UVA library, the VPI library, and the

> Virginia State Library.


I strolled over to the Virginia Tech library at lunch and found a couple
of useful resources. While the library does have bound volumes of
Sanborn maps, it is a limited set (Blacksburg, Roanoke/Salem,
Richmond). There are, however, two sets of microfilm of all the
maps for Virginia.


>From the catalog entries:

G3881.G475 S35 1983.
TITLE        Sanborn fire insurance maps. Virginia [microform]
PUB INFO     Teaneck, N.J. : Chadwyck-Healey, 1983.
DESCRIPT     18 microfilm reels : maps ; 35 mm.
NOTE         Reproduced from original copies in the Geography and Map Division
of the Library of Congress.
Maps arranged alphabetically by name of city or town; within each
city or town in chronological order.
Maps are arranged on microfilm in the order that they appear in
Fire insurance maps in the Library of Congress, 1981.
Includes only maps published before 1950.
[The library only has four of the 18 reels, but does have the one with
Abingdon.]

G3881.G475 1991 F57

"An alphabetical list of the communities of this state represented in
this collection with reel numbers indicated is filmed at the beginning
of each reel together with a list of cross-references wherever
appropriate."
[The library has all 11 reels in this set.]

The library also has equipment to scan from the mircofilm to a file, which
I will make use of later this week to get images of selected pages. This
will be better than trying to piece together the photocopies spit out from
another machine in the library.

One interesting find is the layout of the Whiting Manufacturing Co., located
on the V & C R. R. 1-1/4 mile south of the Court House (in the Feb. 1908
book). It could be a nice modeling project for someone with room on their
layout for a large sawmill with an average stock of 5,000,000 feet of white
pine, hemlock & hard wood lumber (per the note on the page).

As to other maps, MapTech (http://www.historical.maptech.com/index.cfm)
is usually pretty good. However, it is lacking the older maps that cover this
area. On the upside, the Virginia Tech library does have older versions of
the 7.5-minute quads that cover this line. I'll scan selected portions of those,
also. Once done, I'll post the images on the web and let the list know where
to find them.

Bruce in Blacksburg