The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Esri, a geographic information technology company, have partnered to make the enormous collection of the Survey’s map readily available to everyone. While these resources have been downloadable on the Internet since September 2011, this new, user-friendly website provides convenient access to the “Historical Topographic Map Collection.”
This new interface or explorer is a significant improvement over the original system, which was more complicated. The explorer brings to life more than 178,000 maps from 1884 to 2006, allowing users to easily access geo-referenced images, which can also be used in web mapping applications. The timeline allows visitors to easily explore the collection by place, time, and scale, and the sheets are easily downloaded.
Use of the landing page is simple. Visitors enter the desired location in a query box, and once you click on the map a convenient timeline comes up, showing the survey for that place. The user is able to visual see the products that were produced over time and move along the line to see the changes over time.
Check this out, as you will find lots to help with your local and family history research
CLICK HERE TO VIEW A BRIEF VIDEO DEMONSTRATING THE USE OF THE EXPLORE