Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlases | Los Angeles Public Library

Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlases at Central Library

The Sanborn Map Company of New York holds a unique place in American urban historical research. Their atlases of American cities were originally created to inform fire insurance companies of risks in urban areas but ended up tracing the subtle change from an agrarian society to a nation of cities. The hefty atlases produced by D.A. Sanborn from the 1880s to 1970 show changes from block to block like no other cartographic resource, expanding our understanding of what our cities looked like before this modern age.

The original sheets of the atlases changed over time as clerks pasted strips of paper over sites that changed in any way, and streets or neighborhoods transformed the landscape. In the case of our own Los Angeles, the Sanborn maps show us a booming city that grew from two volumes, 36 square miles, and 43,000 people in 1888 to forty-two volumes, 466 square miles, and roughly 3 million people by 1970.

As the Sanborn Company informed insurance companies about the quality of buildings, it also left a permanent impression of community shapes over certain time frames. In many ways, these maps trace the footprints of development in Los Angeles. The atlases are both practical and beautiful in their original color renderings, which show building materials, structural qualities, and special features coded by hue. Adobe is evident alongside codes for apartments, family dwellings, fire hydrants, chimneys, car houses, and the like. The importance of such detail is vital for present-day planners, who must find materials that might cause environmental problems in the here and now.

Urban planners, developers, conservationists, students, and architects study these atlases to determine whether an oil well, sewer outlet, slaughterhouse, refinery, or waste dump may have occupied their site at some point. Indeed, the city requires builders to check Sanborn atlases before they build on their sites. However, some folks just like to look and learn about the old neighborhoods. There is great aesthetic pleasure in scanning the old sheets and allowing the imagination to take over. Beverly Park and its pony ride are there, likewise the old zoo where kids fed the elephants, and the Normal school, standing where Central Library is today, are all part of the Sanborn lore.

The original 1888 volume on Los Angeles shows the locations of the Pony Livery Stables, the Panorama of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Philadelphia brewery, the Home Ice company, the Los Angeles Electric Light Company, and the Atlas Feed Mill. It may seem hard to imagine the Los Angeles of dusty roads and hoofbeats, but here it is frozen in time on the Sanborn sheets. The city of the angels was small and diversified with cracker Companies, flour mills, wineries, stock brokerages, and baseball fields all rubbing shoulders in the Sanborn's domain.

Unfamiliar streets criss-cross the metro area: for example, Fort Street, New High, Rock, Walters, Teed, Sainseven, and others now faded from memory. Churches, hotels, orphan asylums, old Chinatown, and even U.S.C. are identified on the original Sanborn, as is Angelino Heights, the very first suburb.

Central Library owns a collection of Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlases from the Library of Congress on microfilm, covering the entire state of California and offering views of everything from old gold camps to our hometowns in the 1950s. Not all time frames are included in the film, but in an optimal example of coverage in downtown Los Angeles, we can see the old burg in 1888, 1894, 1906, 1929, 1950, 1960, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1967, and 1970. Although Sanborn atlases do not identify owners of homes or businesses, they do name most public buildings, show all structures on the lots, and present streets in exact dimensions.

At the Central library, patrons can view Sanborn atlases on microfilm, use the online Sanborn atlas resource, or be referred to Sanborn's parent company, EDR, for reproductions. In the History Department, Sanborn Atlases, historic photographs, city directories and citations from the California Subject Index can help patrons unlock the secret treasures of Los Angeles neighborhoods and bring back to life a time gone by.

The Historic Resources Group Collection of Sanborn Atlases

The Historic Resources Group Collection of Sanborn Fire Insurance atlases is a hard copy collection of 60 volumes covering the city of Los Angeles and some local cities in the mid-1950’s. This gift from the Historic Resources Group was presented to the Los Angeles Public Library in June of 2004 and provides the History department with a complete set of specimens for the entire city.

How to Find the Correct Sanborn Reels for Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Public Library owns the Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlases in the Library of Congress on Microfilm. The History Department has the entire state of California in this set, covering the period from 1888 to 1950. The 72 reels are cataloged under the number NR 912.794 S198 and are shelved in the microfilm drawers at the far end of the reading room. A guide to Sanborns is available at the Reference Desk and should be used to find which reel contains the atlases appropriate to the desired site.

There is now a second set of Sanborns available under the number NR 912.794 S198-1, covering Los Angeles city only and spanning the fifties, sixties, and a few years up to 1970. This set does not cover outlying cities such as Santa Monica, Pasadena, or City of Industry, etc. These black, plastic boxes are shelved after the early Sanborns in the microfilm drawers at the far end of the reading room.

Sanborns in L.A. How to Find Them

There are 40 volumes covering Los Angeles proper, so first, the patron must determine the volume covering the requested site or area.

Check the large Sanborn Master Address Index at the desk for the volume number and sheet number for the needed site. If you need an area or neighborhood, or are unsure of the address, you can use the Thomas Guide index to Sanborns at the desk for the correct volume.
Check in the Sanborn guide at the desk under the tabbed pages "Los Angeles" for the appropriate reel containing the volume needed after you have found the volume in step one: for example, volume 8 for 1950 would be on reel 29. There are also two copies of this guide on top of the microfiche cabinets behind the electronic island in the History reading room.

The Library of Congress Sanborn set for Los Angeles covers four basic time periods.
- 1888 original covering a small portion of downtown.
- 1894 slightly expanded the downtown area
- 1906 to 1930, as the area grew and the Sanborn coverage expanded. These volumes exist in their original form. The date of first issue is listed right after the volume number: for example vol. 7 1907. This time frame extends from 1907 to 1930, when the last volumes were completed. This set begins at the end of reel 20 and continues to reel 27.
- 1950. As changes were made in the covered areas, they were reflected through pastings applied by Sanborn representatives. The final set of the Library of Congress are the corrected atlases as they looked in 1950. Most architects and urban planners need to review this set, which begins at reel 28 and continues through reel 34.
  
  Disclaimer: Many areas of Los Angeles were not covered by Sanborn, and regions of the city in the western San Fernando Valley are almost totally ignored. If addresses are not found in the Sanborn Address index and are not found in the Thomas Guide index, you will not find them in this library. In rare cases, atlases can be found at California State University, Northridge, where the best hard-copy collection is located.
Many outlying cities are covered by their own Sanborn atlases and are listed in the Sanborn Guide under Cities in L.A. County. Some San Fernando Valley cities are covered, including North Hollywood, Van Nuys, and Reseda. Street indexes precede the cities on the reels. The appropriate reels for any city can be found in the Sanborn guide under "Checklist of California cities." The city name on the microfilm and the year of issue appear in an oval in the upper right-hand corner of the sheets.
When in doubt, call the map librarian 213-228-7414

Using Online Sanborn Fire Insurance Atlases at Central Library

The Los Angeles Public Library makes Sanborn Atlases for the state of California available online via the Library of Congress archives. The online resource does not have as much coverage as the microfilm reels available in the History department of Central Library. However, it does offer extensive coverage from the late nineteenth century up to 1950 in some cases. Sometimes, as many as four separate versions of sites might be represented in the sets. Online remote access is available to patrons holding valid Los Angeles Public Library cards.

For the first time, patrons may now use the street index to the 40-volume set of Sanborn Atlases for Los Angeles, which is the Gaylord Scan at City Sanborn Street Index (PDF)

Or users who wish to search for certain neighborhoods can use the Thomas guide, which graphically shows the volume of given areas. Sanborn Index (PDF)

Sanborn Maps 1867-1970

Select Browse Maps
Select a State from the scroll-down menu (Note: California is the only option)
Select a City from the scroll-down menu
Select a Date from the scroll-down menu

Dates listed do not include every year of the range, but only the year of original publishing or the year the atlas was corrected to in the range. i.e. 1906-Jan. 1950 would include years of original volumes ranging from 1906 (vol. 1-5, then 1907 (vol. 6-7), etc. The time frame is listed as 1906-Jan. 1951 will show all 40 volumes with changes made up to 1950. 1906-1955 show many volumes republished in 1955, and some volumes done in 1955 that cover areas skipped in the original atlases.

Volume Numbers for Los Angeles Neighborhoods: A Rough Guide

Using the online Sanborn collection, there is no street index available to determine locations in the forty-two volumes covering the city limits. The following list is a loose checklist of Los Angeles neighborhoods and the volumes covering those locations.

Downtown: 1st street down to Washington Blvd. / Hoover to Broadway — Volume 1
Downtown: Main street to the LA River / 1st street to Washington Blvd. — Volume 2
Downtown: 1st street to Sunset/ LA River to Rampart — Volume 3
Atwater — Volume 40
Bel Air — Volume 24
Beverly Hills — Volume 21
Boyle Heights — Volumes 13 & 14
Brentwood — Volume 24
Century City — Volume 24
Chinatown — Volume 3
Civic Center — Volume 3
Country Club Park — Volume 8
Cudahy — Volume 31
Eagle Rock — Volumes 31 & 39
East L.A. — Volume 14
Echo Park — Volumes 3 & 11
Exposition Park — Volume 5
Garment District — Volume 2
Glassell Park — Volume 39
Hancock Park — Volume 22
Highland Park — Volume 12
Hollywood — Volume 10
Hollywood Hills — some in Volume 10a
Huntington Park — Volume 30
Hyde Park — Volume 25
Koreatown — Volume 7
Leimert Park — Volume 36
Little Tokyo — Volume 3
Montecito Heights — Volume 13
Mt. Washington — Volume 12
Park La Brea — Volume 22
Produce District — Volume 2
Rancho Park — Volume 24
San Pedro — Volume 19
Silverlake — Volume 11
South Gate — Volume 29
UCLA — Volume 24
USC — Volume 5
Venice — end of Volume 40
Vernon — Volumes 15 & 32
View Park — Volume 36
Walnut Park — Volume 30
Watts — Volume 28
West Hollywood — Volumes 20 & 10
Westlake — Volume 1
Westwood — Volume 24
Windsor Hills — Volume 36