This is really cool. University of Kansas Libraries has uploaded detailed maps created by the Sandborn Map Company in the 1800s of 241 cities. It's like Google Maps from 1860.
The maps were originally made for insurance companies, but the university says now they can be used to study the state's history.
From a KU press release:
"There's a tremendous amount of detail -- where windows were located,number of stories to a building, roof composition," Sherry Williams,
curator of collections at Kenneth Spencer Research Library, said of the
maps. "Historians, historic preservationists, architects and city
planners love these maps, and making them freely available online will
bring them to whole new audiences."
contract with the city to provide streetlights. As The Electric Word: A
Weekly Review of Current Progress of Electricity and Its Practical Uses
reported in 1888, "Although it is said that the land boom at Wichita
has dropped off, there are more electric lights being put in every day." Hooray for electricity.
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