Fire was a constant danger at the turn of the century in Snohomish County, making fire insurance a big business. To help assess liability, agents relied on detailed maps created by the Sanborn Map Company. Today, these maps offer a fascinating window into the past.
Sanborn Map Company
Fire insurance maps show construction materials, water systems, and other information that help fire insurance underwriters assess liability. The first ones were created in London in the late 1700s.
American companies began producing fire insurance maps in the mid-1800s. Demand skyrocketed after the Civil War as increased industrialization and immigration fueled the growth of cities and towns.
Through careful management and buying out their competitors, the Sanborn Map Company came to control the American fire insurance map market. Founded in 1867 by Daniel Alfred Sanborn (1827-1883), the company also produced maps for Canada and Mexico.
At its peak in the 1920s, Sanborn Maps employed over 700 people, including 300 field agents. Maps had to be frequently updated. “Two employees of the Sanborn Map company of New York,” the Everett Daily Herald noted on January 15, 1926, “are making a correction of fire insurance maps of the city [of Snohomish] …They are expected to be engaged a week in the survey.”
Accessing Snohomish County Sanborn Maps
With its sawmills and wooden buildings, turn of the twentieth century Snohomish County was no stranger to fire. In May 1911, for example, an out-of-control restaurant fire in the city of Snohomish destroyed 35 downtown businesses.
Sanborn produced fire insurance maps of Snohomish County communities between 1888 and 1954, including a number of updates. Maps have been preserved of Arlington, Edmonds, Everett, Gold Bar, Granite Falls, Index, Marysville, Monroe, Mukilteo, Silvana, Snohomish, Stanwood, Startup, and Sultan.
Sanborn maps were originally lithographic prints, sold as both bound volumes and individual sheets, depending on the size of the town. The 1914 map of Everett is 112 pages, an exponential growth from nine pages in May 1892. In contrast, the March 1914 map of the small timber community of Startup in the Cascade foothills is only a single page.
Many of Sanborn’s 700,000+ maps from across the nation are now online.
A number of digitized Snohomish County maps can be accessed for free through the Library of Congress (LOC). The Northwest Room at the Everett Public Library has digitized two Sanborn maps of Everett. They also have a microfilm collection of other Sanborn maps from around Snohomish County, viewable by appointment.
The Washington State Library in Tumwater has a microfilm collection of Snohomish County Sanborn maps, including ones not digitized on LOC. Images are in black and white.
Using Sanborn Maps
Sanborn maps contain a treasure trove of information for modern users. Genealogists can look up where their ancestors lived and worked. Researchers can track their community’s development. Checking maps can help date old photographs and allow historic preservationists to assess landmark buildings. The maps are also a great way to find potentially polluted sites like old dry-cleaning businesses and gas stations.
While Sanborn held high standards, the maps are not 100% accurate. Construction was ongoing, so what existed on the ground would never completely match the date on the map. Maps sometimes overlooked impoverished or minority neighborhoods.
Large maps, like those for Everett, opened with an overall view of the “congested” or business district and a description of the community’s water facilities and fire department. The 1914 Everett map, for example, noted that there were 218 fire hydrants and 21 firefighters in the city of 30,000 people, besides a chief and assistant chief. There is also an index of roads and important businesses, schools, government buildings and churches.
Sanborn maps were color coded to show construction materials. Examining the 1914 map of Everett, most buildings are tinted yellow to indicate frame/wood construction. The Monroe Public School at the intersection of Maple and California Streets, however, is colored pink to show fire-resistant brick construction. The surveyor noted wooden auxiliary classrooms nearby. Surrounding buildings are private homes, marked “D” for “dwelling” and tinted yellow, indicating wooden construction. Ironically, Fire Department Station No. 1 was also made of wood.
To assess fire risk, building uses were often listed. Businesses at the intersection of Front and Beach Streets in the May 1906 Marysville map included a steam laundry, restaurant saloon, and hotel. The fire equipment at City Hall was also noted. The streets were 75 feet wide.
Maps included “x” marks for doors and solid lines to indicate walls. Types of heating sources were also noted. In the August 1905 Arlington map, the laundry and dining rooms were noted at the Arlington Hotel at the intersection of Railroad Avenue and 2nd Street. Beer and coal storage sheds, both highly flammable, were located on the Northern Pacific Railroad’s property across the street.
Sanborn Maps: Window to the Past
The Great Depression, World War II, and changing methods of fire insurance liability assessment dried up demand for Sanborn’s maps. Sanborn Geospatial now produces GIS data for businesses and governments.
Sanborn fire insurance maps help us visualize a lost world. Historian John Repps might have been writing about bird’s-eye view drawings in his book “Panoramas of Promise,” but the same holds true of Sanborn maps. With the maps, we can “in our imagination approach their outskirts, visit their neighborhoods, walk their streets, admire their buildings, and appreciate the richness and variety of the urban scene in this region a century or more ago.”
