The Morris Addition Neighborhood

Sanborn Maps, 1903-1941

One of the key resources for looking at the history of the neighborhood is the set of Sanborn fire insurance maps for Sebastopol produced between 1903 and 1941.

Sanborn Maps were originally created for assessing fire insurance liability in urbanized areas in the United States. The maps include detailed information regarding town and building information in approximately 12,000 U.S. towns and cities from 1867 to 1970. Author Kim Keister describes the legacy of Sanborn maps: “Stated simply, the Sanborn maps survive as a guide to American urbanization that is unrivaled by other cartography and, for that matter, by few documentary resources of any kind.” They are a highly useful resource for historical research, planning, preservation, genealogical research, sociological studies and research of urban geography. (source: Wikipedia)

We have available several sets of maps, though not all of which document the entire neighborhood. Nonetheless, the pattern of development can be traced from the earliest, in 1903 through the latest readily available map from 1949.

The maps are quite detailed, showing not only building locations, but also building details, including gas lines, porches and more. Because the maps are large-scale, the following maps are broken into several parts: