Kent State University Sanborn Fire Insurance maps
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  2. Kent State University Sanborn Fire Insurance maps

About the Collection

The Sanborn Maps are large scale street plans produced by the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company from 1882 to 1967.

Sanborn Maps show the outline of each building including the location of windows and doors together with street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, building use, and house and block numbers. The maps display building materials, number of floors, and building purpose (if available). Businesses, churches, and government structures are often identified as well as the business type (cotton mill, automobile repair, etc.). An individual homeowner/ occupier is not identified.

These maps are used by a wide range of researchers including local historians to locate and identify buildings and neighborhoods, urban historians to study the growth of towns and cities, and environmentalists concerned about the impact of new developments.

The first batch of Sanborns loaded into OAKS in December 2020 include Akron, and additional maps will be uploading in the coming months. Thanks to funds from the Ohio Local History Alliance (OLHA) digitization grant and Ohio History Fund grant that covered much of the digitization costs, as well as assistance from University Libraries.

Additionally, Cleveland Public Library has a selection of their Ohio Sanborn collection digitized and the Library of Congress also includes some Ohio maps as well. Library of Congress also provides a helpful page on the colors and keys.

Browse by county

Browse the Kent State University Sanborn Fire Insurance maps Collections

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Akron, Summit County, Ohio, 1892

Digitization was supported by a Ohio Local History Alliance (OLHA) digitization grant. Maps are from the collection at Kent State University Libraries map collection (McGilvery Hall, Room 410).
Format:
Map

Akron, Summit County, Ohio, 1904

Digitization was supported by a Ohio Local History Alliance (OLHA) digitization grant. Maps are from the collection at Kent State University Libraries map collection (McGilvery Hall, Room 410).
Format:
Map

Akron, Summit County, Ohio, 1916

Digitization was supported by a Ohio Local History Alliance (OLHA) digitization grant. Maps are from the collection at Kent State University Libraries map collection (McGilvery Hall, Room 410).
Format:
Map

Akron, Summit County, Ohio, 1920

Digitization was supported by a Ohio Local History Alliance (OLHA) digitization grant. Maps are from the collection at Kent State University Libraries map collection (McGilvery Hall, Room 410).
Format:
Map

Akron, Summit County, Ohio, 1923

Digitization was supported by a Ohio Local History Alliance (OLHA) digitization grant. Maps are from the collection at Kent State University Libraries map collection (McGilvery Hall, Room 410).
Format:
Map

Akron, Summit County, Ohio, Volume 3, 1930

Digitization was supported by a Ohio Local History Alliance (OLHA) digitization grant. Maps are from the collection at Kent State University Libraries map collection (McGilvery Hall, Room 410).
Format:
Map

Amherst, Lorain County, Ohio, 1922

Digitization was supported by an Ohio History Fund grant. Note: Page 1 is missing from this item, and page 2 has a missing portion of the map.
Format:
Map