On the 3rd Floor of the New Orleans Public Library Main Branch is the collection of Sanborn Maps for the entire city. Sanborn Map Company starting making these maps around the time of the Civil War for assessing fire insurance liability. Aside from being beautiful (check out those north arrows!), they hold a wealth of information about city infrastructure + individual buildings' constructions + construction dates, while looking at several separately-dated maps gives a look into the way that urban landscapes have evolved. Especially interesting are the maps from before/after 1960's + early 1970's, when neighborhoods were demolished for the construction of I-10 and I-610. What stories will today's maps tell future generations?
Some of the older maps are available online:
nutrias.org --> search our databases --> history --> Sanborn Maps.
Each volume contains a different section of the city, and each volume's scanned index is very helpful for finding street locations.
