Why No County-Level Highway Maps Prior to 1936?

[Brian556]

I'm wondering why there are no county-level highway maps prior to 1936. Surely there are some out there, the state and county roads departments had to have them to function, right?

As far as the General Highway Maps are concerned, why were they started in 1936 for multiple, if not all, states? (I've only used them to research as few states) Were they federally mandated?

The lack of county-level highway maps prior to 1936 is very frustrating, as it means that I am unable to complete my research, and put all former alignments on the maps that I am making

[mgk920]

I suppose that this depends on the state.  I've seen county-level highway maps dating to the 1920s here in Wisconsin.

Mike

[Max Rockatansky]

I suppose that this depends on the state.  I've seen county-level highway maps dating to the 1920s here in Wisconsin.

Mike

I've found them back to the 1870s for California.  It seems that some counties hired surveyors to Map their roads and property lines. 

[J N Winkler]

As far as the General Highway Maps are concerned, why were they started in 1936 for multiple, if not all, states? (I've only used them to research as few states) Were they federally mandated?

1936 is about right for the federal government to have begun encouraging state highway departments to compile county highway maps as part of the statewide planning surveys.  Federal funding would have been made available to help support this activity.

As for county highway maps before this date, their compilation would have been at the initiative of the county or the state highway department, and would likely not have been undertaken except in jurisdictions that were unusually forward-thinking about traffic matters.  There is no actual requirement for a county road department to prepare a highway map just to know where the highways go.  What the county would have needed, for asset management purposes, is a collection of strip maps indicating the right-of-way limits for roadways adopted by the county and possibly also the physical limits of the traversable roadbed.

In some states such as Kansas, it is not uncommon for updatings of county highway maps to be essentially county-level functional classification/traffic count maps with minimal indication of roadway alignment and physical features.  (For this information in certain Kansas counties, I have had to resort to the Web Archive to download old versions of the KDOT county maps.)

[froggie]

Virginia's go back at least to 1932.  Hennepin County, MN at least to 1930.

Vermont as a general rule (and aside from a few very specific years) does not have county-level maps, but they have town-level maps that in at least one case go back to 1858.  It wasn't until 1941, though, that Vermont town-level maps were done at a consistent and accurate standard.