I didn't notice the slide trick when I first looked. That is indeed a cool feature.
Historic Aerials: Old to New Land Images
- Thread starter dave1949
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Sysop
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Interesting to see how little has changed at my place.
newbury
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A great part of my job from about 1975 to 1984 was obtaining and analyzing historical aerial photography for the Corps of Engineers. My boss, Dr. Robert Frost (Army Geospatial Center > About > History), was one of the founders of analyzing historical imagery for WWII.
We worked on projects such as old ammo dumps, shoreline erosion, the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway land disputes. My boss was a fanatic about buying the old photography, which was generally at about 1:20,000 to 1:40,000 scale and we would "mosaic" them on 4x8 sheets of masonite. This was predigital. One of the "minor" problems of the really old imagery was that the negatives were nitrate based and would occasionally explode.
Virtually everywhere east of the Mississippi was covered by the late 1930's but it's availability has greatly dropped since the 1980's.
Of course now one can just go out and fire up their drone to get imagery.
We worked on projects such as old ammo dumps, shoreline erosion, the Tennessee-Tombigbee waterway land disputes. My boss was a fanatic about buying the old photography, which was generally at about 1:20,000 to 1:40,000 scale and we would "mosaic" them on 4x8 sheets of masonite. This was predigital. One of the "minor" problems of the really old imagery was that the negatives were nitrate based and would occasionally explode.
Virtually everywhere east of the Mississippi was covered by the late 1930's but it's availability has greatly dropped since the 1980's.
Of course now one can just go out and fire up their drone to get imagery.
DrRod
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The 1958 view showed me some barns and houses I remembered but are now long gone. A great trip back in time. Thank you so much for posting this.
I'm glad you folks are enjoying the look back in time.
I have the very rough remains of a cellar hole and stacked rock bank barn foundation on my lot. Judging from the height of the barn bank, they may have raised pigs or something there. Hard to tell. I have not been able to find a picture of that old farmstead in any of the town histories. From this aerial site I know it had to have burned or fallen down before 1953. It could date back to the mid 1800's or earlier.
The town of Industry was first settled by Levi Greenleaf in 1787. Most of the land, which was part of the Plymouth Patent (land grant) belonged to Royalist sympathizers and some was claimed (well, squatted on
) by Revolutionary War veterans following the war in the hope that the government would grant them ownership. At that time, the District of Maine was part of and governed from Massachusetts. Separate statehood came in 1820.
I have the very rough remains of a cellar hole and stacked rock bank barn foundation on my lot. Judging from the height of the barn bank, they may have raised pigs or something there. Hard to tell. I have not been able to find a picture of that old farmstead in any of the town histories. From this aerial site I know it had to have burned or fallen down before 1953. It could date back to the mid 1800's or earlier.
The town of Industry was first settled by Levi Greenleaf in 1787. Most of the land, which was part of the Plymouth Patent (land grant) belonged to Royalist sympathizers and some was claimed (well, squatted on
) by Revolutionary War veterans following the war in the hope that the government would grant them ownership. At that time, the District of Maine was part of and governed from Massachusetts. Separate statehood came in 1820.Streetcar
Veteran Member
In checking locations near Cincinnati, all images are very blurry. Am I doing something wrong?
JamesHW
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Nice resource there. The topo maps my area are interesting how inaccurate they were up until the 40's (such as the two streams on my property converging rather than remaining parallel as they do in reality). Another resource I found is Vintage Aerial | historic aerial photography of rural American farms and homesteads where they have a lot of old aerial photos taken from planes, as distinct from satellite images, of a lot of rural areas. I have not found images of my place yet, but it can be hard to recognize as some much has changed over the years.
They will set up a slide show for your target area that you can view online.
They will set up a slide show for your target area that you can view online.
My imagery only goes back to 1996, 5 years before i bought my place. Checking out my parent's place is more interesting though... it's amazing how much more land is forested now than in 1953 when it was mainly farmland.