Historic Topo Maps

The 1941 Oswego quadrangle shows my bicycle commute through Portland's west hills along the old Oregon Electric Railway line now Multnomah Blvd.

Quadrangle maps from USGS digitized for browsing and download from ESRI. site

To begin, readers may simply type in the location of the place they would like to explore. For example, entering "Ashland, Oregon" calls up a map of the small town on the northern border of California. Clicking on the map then pulls up a timeline featuring multiple historical maps that can be perused at the reader's leisure. In the case, of Ashland, maps from 1891, 1893, 1897, 1964, 1983, and 1996 show the developing town center and the roads and streets that, over the decades, have begun to snake out from downtown and occupy the nearby hillsides. The thousands of historical maps available on the site may all be downloaded free of charge. scout