DESCRIPTION: SOLD
Sanborn's Insurance Atlas Volume two for Jacksonville, Florida with 1913 copyright date and pasted updates from 1920's, 1940's - 1950's. The manuscript correction record shows 12 sets of corrections between April 1949 and April 1960, but earlier updates appear to have been made. A very heavy atlas published by Sanborn Map Company, Broadway New York.
Volume two coverage includes downtown north Jacksonville with almost all important river frontage along the St. John's River south of Long Branch Creek. A quick sampling of features includes Jacksonville Memorial Stadium- the GATOR BOWL, City Hall, Jacksonville Gas Company, Sinclair Refining Company storage plant, Merrill-Stevens Dry Dock and Repair.
Pages have not been counted or checked for completeness but the sheets are generally in good condition with linen binder's tabs still holding all tightly in place in the metal binder. Built to last! Many sheets are original to 1913 (see bottom right corner) with pasted updates; some sheets have been replaced over time.
Numerous (hundreds) of pasted updates over five decades make this an invaluable cartographic researcher's reference source for Jacksonville, Florida in the first half of the 20th century. In some cases entire new updated sheets are pasted over old sheets. It is possible, in theory, to perform an "archaeological" unpasting all the way down to the original base maps from 1913. For example sheets 171 and 172 show pasted overlays of an new East Expressway laid over the original 1913 base maps, potentially providing a clear picture of urban renewal in action.
Sanborn Map Company
The Sanborn Map Company was founded as the “D. A. Sanborn National Diagram Bureau” in 1866 by Daniel Alfred Sanborn, a civil engineer and surveyor who had previously prepared fire insurance maps for Aetna Insurance Company. From its headquarters in New York City, the firm developed a systematic, color-coded mapping style that quickly became the industry standard for assessing fire risk in urban areas across the United States. Each map showed every building footprint, construction material, number of stories, location of windows, doors, and hydrants—details insurers needed to calculate premiums and underwrite fire policies. By the 1880s, Sanborn was producing atlases for hundreds of cities, updating them every few years as buildings changed or cities expanded.
At its peak in the early 20th century, the Sanborn Map Company employed thousands of field surveyors and cartographers and maintained a collection covering more than 12,000 U.S. towns and cities. The company’s atlases became essential tools not only for insurance underwriters but also for city planners, architects, and historians. After World War II, aerial photography and digital mapping gradually replaced the hand-drawn surveys, and Sanborn transitioned into modern geospatial and GIS services. Today, the original printed volumes—many once restricted to insurance offices—are prized historical artifacts, valued for their precision, artistry, and unmatched documentation of America’s urban development.
PUBLICATION DATE: 1913
GEOGRAPHIC AREA: United States
BODY OF WATER: St. John's River
CONDITION: Fair.
Some light water damage with waviness. Original cover disintegrating but pages intact in Sanford's metal binding system. Pages with remnants of tabs. Stable but not pretty.
COLORING: Colored.
ENGRAVER:
SIZE: 21
" x
24 "
ITEM PHYSICAL LOCATION:
PRICE: $
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