Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
Large-scale plats of Brewster village and the Town of Southeast, mapped building by building for fire-insurance underwriters — from the Library of Congress Sanborn Maps Collection.
From the 1860s into the twentieth century, the Sanborn Map Company surveyed American towns block by block for fire-insurance underwriters, recording each building’s footprint, construction material, height, and use. For a place like Brewster — much of whose nineteenth-century fabric is gone — the Sanborn sheets are among the most detailed surviving records of what stood where, and when.
The sheets below are reproduced from the Library of Congress Sanborn Maps Collection, which is in the public domain. Where a building on these maps is the subject of research published on this site, a link to the relevant narrative is included with the sheet.
Source & Rights
The content of the Library of Congress online Sanborn Maps Collection is in the public domain and is free to use and reuse.
Credit line: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Sanborn Maps Collection.
More about copyright and other restrictions. For guidance on compiling full citations, consult the Library of Congress on citing primary sources.