Researching...what to look for in old maps and pictures....

[DamonH]

What should I be looking for. I have looked at so many maps and read so much stuff its hard to know where to begin. I am located in San Antonio and I am looking for places. Any help, thanks in advance. Damon

 

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[gldhntr]

look over sanborn fire maps...look for stores, saloons, houses of ill repute, stables, anywhere people would have been making decent steady $ as alot went into the ground....ferry sites on other maps..tax maps/surveys for large plantation type houses and stagecoach stops...local tax collectors houses....possibilities are endless...find old places where $ was made or people making $ lived. somewhere there there is $ buried.........g

 

[Gypsy Heart]

Take old maps and overlay them with the new...is a town that was there in 1850,gone by 1900?

Compare the bend of rivers and streams with the older maps ,...stream courses change overperiods of time...what house was on the curve of a stream could actually be back 100yds now due to change of course....

Look for opera houses....these were big in the early town

Rivers edges...everything was dumped or pushed toward the rivers edge

Check what was just outside the city limits...alot of your gambling houses ,etc operated on the fringes...

 

[stoney56]

You can also check either local material in libraries or historical museums in your area for pictures. Try to determine the location and compare with more recent photos. If a homestead and people are present, you can determine their lifestyle, whether the trees are still there or if not where the old trees were. (i.e.) Looking for common landmarks that can help pinpoint certain locations like outbuildings and old wells.
You might check older churches and schools. Many keep photos of their original bldgs. and can show where old parking lots, playgrounds, were and also changes to the existing structures.

 

[silverswede]

Exactly, Stoney. Always look beyond the subject of the photographer. Instead of looking at the guy sitting on a dead horse notice the dirt street, the wooden sidewalks, the saloons, the dance hall, the vintage of the automobiles. How great would be if you could stand on the spot the photgrapher stood on and snap a few good present day shots.

 

[moonshine]

im kind of new to the whole research thing myself. but i would suggest just start with one thing at first, it can be overwhelming. sometimes things pan out and sometimes they dont. sometimes things that youre zeroing in on can be totally undetectable, and sometimes they are wide open. just start out with one single thing, check it out, and then move on to something else.

for example, just by looking through maps, i have found a section of road which was rerouted sometime long ago. it was rerouted due to a railroad that was to be built, but never was. this original section of road that was abandoned had a church on it. i drove by the other day and could see it was all overgrown, and some huge pine trees were still in the area! and also a lot of woods are in the area. the original road is all overgrown and scrubby, from what i could tell in my drive-by.

i have not detected it yet, as soon as the weather warms up im gonna check it out. im might be good, and it might not.

looking through old maps and pictures is just about as much fun as detecting itself!

a few other things didnt pan out. but one thing is for sure. as you look through maps you will see which roads are the old ones. sometimes it is VERY suprising. for example, i found an old road. nowadays, on one end of the road, it dead ends into a park. on the other end of the road, it is all a newer subdivision. i would never have guessed that at one time this was a "major" road. nowadays it isnt even connected!!

stuff like this is so interesting to me let alone being able to find new areas to metal detect. take yourself back in time. put yourself into "time-travel mode".

well this is what i have picked up so far, good luck!

 

[Monty]

In airial maps you can usually see old two track trails leading up to homesites long gone, ditto to old trading posts, general stores, fortifications, etc. Monty

 

[stoney56]

Exactly, Stoney. Always look beyond the subject of the photographer. Instead of looking at the guy sitting on a dead horse notice the dirt street, the wooden sidewalks, the saloons, the dance hall, the vintage of the automobiles. How great would be if you could stand on the spot the photgrapher stood on and snap a few good present day shots.

Silver, take this pic for example. It's part of the TreasureNet Historical Image Collection and just so happens to be only about 15-20 mi. from here.

 

[silverswede]

Great picture Stoney, shows tents with no floors, people slept on the ground. Foot trails through camp ground. Wagon trails, A main walk way just beyond the "street' with a buggy road just beyond that. Church in upper right corner. Probably 1800's as there's no auto's. How's the town doing now. Hope the "Boomer" camp isn't a Wallmart. I'm guessing Boomers were oil field hopeful workers. Love to study those old photo's Small town newspapers are a great source. Thanks Stony and give it a go Damon, it's part of the addiction.

 

[stoney56]

Great picture Stoney, shows tents with no floors, people slept on the ground. Foot trails through camp ground. Wagon trails, A main walk way just beyond the "street' with a buggy road just beyond that. Church in upper right corner. Probably 1800's as there's no auto's. How's the town doing now. Hope the "Boomer" camp isn't a Wallmart. I'm guessing Boomers were oil field hopeful workers. Love to study those old photo's Small town newspapers are a great source. Thanks Stony and give it a go Damon, it's part of the addiction.

Arkansas City (pronounced Ar-kansas not like Arkansaw) no offense to those proud Razorbacks. is still going strong. The Boomer camp is now nothing but asphalt and limestone. The church is gone but the bldg far upper left is still there. The street running from upper left to lower right is I believe known as Summit (the main street). The photo was taken 4 months and 15 days prior to the largest of the Land Runs (6,000,000 acres) in what's now Oklahoma.

Boomers where those who by constant agitation tried to bring about the opening of Oklahoma to settlers before 1889."