Geography

Brown, Door, Kewaunee, Oconto and Shawano Counties – Historical Atlases, Directories, Plat Maps and High School Yearbooks

Plat books, atlases, school yearbooks and school newspapers documenting northeastern Wisconsin, specifically Brown, Door, Kewaunee and Shawano counties. School yearbooks and newspapers included in this collection are The Okato (1922-1926), The Bay Mist (1910, 1912, 1922), The Aeroplane (1914-1921), East High Aeroplane (1924-1925), The Flashes (1912-1925), The Thistle (1908, 1913), The Crescent Beach Echoes (1909-1911, 1913, 1917, 1920, 1923), The Bugler (1918, 1922), Scroll of the Wolves (1929) and Lake Whispers (1915-1916, 1921-1925).

Digital Sanborn Maps of Milwaukee 1894 and 1900

Two fire insurance atlases featuring detailed color maps of Milwaukee. Produced by the Sanborn Map Company, the 1894 atlas includes four volumes consisting of 450 map sheets and the 1910 atlas includes eight volumes consisting of 830 map sheets.

Fond du Lac and Green Lake County Atlases, Directories, and Histories

This digital collection contains 13 published books and a wall map providing accessibility to early information about the City Of Berlin and Green Lake County. City and county directories list residents with their addresses and occupations and include an alphabetic list of business firms and a street and avenue guide. City information for 1892 is now easily accessible from a wall map.

Geology Lantern Slides

In early 2016, these lantern slides were donated to the Beloit College Archives by the Department of Geology. Little is known about their date of production or the company that created them. Previously used in classroom teaching, they depict a variety of geological features across the globe.

Historical County Plat Maps from South Central Wisconsin and Early Madison City Directories

This digital collection of historic plat books, city directories, and atlases provides accessibility to early information about South Central Wisconsin, specifically Columbia, Dane, Portage and Wood counties. The early city directories for Madison provide helpful historical information on the early years of the state capital in addition to helping those looking for information on specific people and businesses in the area in the 1800s and early 1900s. The directories provide an alphabetical list of citizens with their addresses and occupations, a classified business directory, lists of city and county officials, churches, schools, societies, streets and wards.

Historical Maps Collection

More than 6,000 historic maps of Wisconsin and the world, dating from as early as 1513. Examples of nearly every type of traditional cartographic medium can be found, from elaborate maps of Renaissance explorations to simple outline maps.

Images of Lake Geneva

Images of Lake Geneva

Photographs and postcards depicting Lake Geneva, Wisconsin in its heyday as a summer retreat for wealthy Chicagoans. This collection also includes plat books and atlases spanning 1873-1962.

La Crosse Regional Maps Collection

Maps of the city of La Crosse, La Crosse County and surrounding region, including rail, highway, survey and topographic maps from the 1850s through the 1970s.

Milwaukee Maps

Various maps of the City of Milwaukee and the greater metro area, including population, transit and street maps, from the 1870s through the 1970s.

Milwaukee Neighborhoods – Photos and Maps 1885-1992

Images of Milwaukee neighborhoods from the Far Northwest Side to the Far South Side, providing a visual documentation of the development of the city of Milwaukee from the mid-1880s to the early 1990s. The image collection is accompanied by 12 maps of Milwaukee from the holdings of the American Geographical Society Library.

Plat Maps of Racine and Kenosha Counties

The State of Wisconsin was surveyed by the federal government between 1833 and 1866 in order to divide the vast public domain into properly-sized lots that could be sold or otherwise divested to raise funds for the federal government and to encourage settlement. The work was done using the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), which divides land into six-mile square townships and one-mile square sections. Plat books and maps make use of the Public Land Survey System to represent land ownership patterns on a county-by-county basis. They are a great resource for tracing property owners and borders. The plat map for each year depicts the most updated information for the property at the time the County Register of Deeds’ records were consulted.  Such information includes the land owner, number of acres, placement of a house and sometimes other features.

The Changing Landscapes of Wisconsin: A Digital Archive of Historic Aerial Photographs

Changing Landscapes of Wisconsin creates wide accessibility to a rare collection of historic aerial photographs acquired by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) from 1937-1941. These photographs provide a snapshot of Wisconsin’s landscapes and have become a baseline dataset for understanding environmental, social, and economic changes that have occurred since that time.

Walworth County Plat Map 1857

Walworth County Plat Map 1857

The Walworth County Plat Map of 1857 is the oldest and one of the most frequently used maps in the UW-Whitewater Archives. This digitized map allows users to click a township within Walworth County and view the database results for all residents and properties within that township, as documented in 1857.

Wisconsin Public Land Survey Records

Wisconsin Public Land Survey Records

The field notes and plat maps of the public land survey of Wisconsin are a valuable resource for original land survey information, as well as for understanding Wisconsin’s landscape history. The survey of Wisconsin was conducted between 1832 and 1866 by the federal General Land Office. This work established the township, range and section grid; the pattern upon which land ownership and land use is based.