LibGuides: Teaching DC Neighborhoods: Downloadable high resolution maps of DC neighborhoods 1887-1921

Using Real Estate Atlas Maps to Explore Neighborhood Development

Real estate atlases are collections of maps that trace the evolution of the built environment over time. Published by a few companies, the most common DC atlases were published by and known as Baist's. These atlases were published in four volumes and a volume was released every few years. Be careful: The four volumes do not track with the four quadrants of the District.

Step 1: The first step when using real estate atlases to explore the evolution of a particular neighborhood is to figure out which volume documents it. Luckily there's a four-volume diagram to help determine which volume you need!

In the diagram here, the pink area indicates Volume 1, which includes neighborhoods west and north of the Capitol, south of Boundary Street (now Florida Avenue), and east of Georgetown.

The yellow area indicates Volume 2, which includes NE DC south of Florida Avenue, SW DC west of the Anacostia, and SE DC west of the Anacostia River.

The light green area indicates Volume 3, which includes the area of NW DC that is north and west of Florida Avenue.

The beige area indicates Volume 4, which comprises NE north of Florida Avenue, and the areas of SE and SW that are east and/or south of the Anacostia River.

Step 2: Locate the earliest edition for the volume that includes the neighborhood you want to learn more about.

Open to the Index Map page. As seen in the diagram here, the Index Map will be divided into areas.

The red number on each area indicates the page you need to turn to to see building-level detail of that area.

Step 3: Go to the page that documents the neighborhood you're researching. Using the key on these pages (like in the top left of the picture here), you can see that pink indicated the buildings made of brick, while yellow indicated they were made of frame, or wood.

You can see the names of developers and landowners, the square and lot numbers, whether a building had a shed behind it, and how the names of streets changed over time. If a street name is (in parentheses), that means it's the old street name; as the years passed, new editions of the atlases who phase out the old street names entirely.

Take note of the neighborhood features, the names you see, how developed, or undeveloped, the squares and lots are.

Step 4: Having taken note of the neighborhood features, then you can go to the next edition of the same volume, repeat steps 2 and 3, and see how the neighborhood changed over time!

Real Estate Atlases

DIGITIZED REAL ESTATE ATLASES - ONLINE RESOURCE

The DC Public Library has digitized plat maps/real estate atlases from 1874 to 1896; see the Maps: Real Estate Plat Books collection at Dig DC. In addition, the Maps: City & Regional collection on Dig DC may show early maps of your neighborhood.

The Library of Congress online map collection also includes early Baist and Sanborn atlases. These are available for high resolution downloads: