The Map & Imagery Library holds the largest collection of Sanborn maps of Florida cities, outside of the Library of Congress. Over 130 Florida cities and towns are covered, with the earliest map depicting 1884 Cedar Key. In terms of Alachua County coverage, the collection contains maps of Alachua, Gainesville, High Springs, Newberry, and Waldo.
Sanborn maps were mainly designed to help fire insurance agents determine the degree of damage to a property and show accurate information to help them determine risks and establish premiums. They showed the size (including color-coding), shape and construction of buildings (brick, adobe, frame, etc), dwellings (including hotels and churches), and other structures such as bridges, docks and barns. Along with fire stations, you could also find water facilities, sprinklers, hydrants, cisterns, and alarm boxes as well as firewalls, windows, doors, elevators and chimneys and roof types.
The maps included street names, property boundaries and lot lines, and house and block numbers. Other information such as the latest census figures, prevailing winds; railroad lines and Indian reservations and topography were included. Today, the maps are an invaluable guide to inner-city history, land use, and historic preservation.
The index page of a 1922 Sanborn map of Gainesville.
Digital images are available for maps between 1884 to 1923. Sanborn maps that are out of copyright are available digitally through the Sanborn® Fire Insurance Company Maps of Florida collection on the UF Digital Collections website. This digital collection contains more than 300 bibliographic units in more than 3,000 map sheets. Digitized maps were created from the printed maps held in the collections of the Map & Imagery Library.
All of our Sanborns, including those in copyright and not available digitally, can be searched through the UF Libraries catalog. All maps are also available for in-library use at the Map & Imagery Library.
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