geonames.usgs.gov/pls/topomaps/
I've been having a lot of fun looking at very old USGS maps using this site. The oldest I can find for this area are dated 1886 based on survey work in 1884.That's great considering parts of the area shown were not surveyed by the Government until about 1870. Of course, the precision is not what we would expect today. And, sometimes creeks are shown somewhere different from where they are and have been, even that long ago. As this area was largely undeveloped at that time there are numerous little towns identified that didn't last long. Sometimes they may be two or three miles from where they really were. Not sure how that happened. As best I can tell, though, they did a pretty good job of documenting where the railroads ran. Most of those shown have now been abandoned and the few left have different names.
The University of New Hampshire has a lot of historical USGS available online too. They only cover New England and NY I think. If you google "University of New Hampshire historical USGS maps", you will find the link.
I've used them a lot to find old village names and old road locations. They're very valuable.
Gregg
This is a useful site. Scroll down the page to the "Pre-1945" map index per state.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/topo/
There went a quick 20 minutes 😀
Thanks for the links, all. Cool stuff.
I have nothing to add, just posting so I can find this thread later
thanks,
James