Great tool for historic highway research

[usends]

For those who don't already know about this: http://historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs/
It allows you to zoom in to your area of interest, choose from any of the USGS maps that cover that area, and drape it over a modern street map.  You can even adjust the transparency to aid with your comparison.  This can be a great way to figure out which roads were used by historic highway traffic (before rerouting/bypasses).  It's a lot more convenient than manually downloading each topo map.

[NE2]

Looks like a better interface and more complete selection than http://historicaerials.com/ . On the other hand, the latter has aerials (most of which are USGS, AFAIK). Thanks for the link.

[kurumi]

That overlay feature is much better for figuring out small alignment changes (i.e. construction or realignment happened in 1949, but where exactly?) Comparing maps side by side starts to feel like this:

[NE2]

Comparing maps side by side starts to feel like this:

Alt-tab is your friend.

[NE2]

Turns out the selection isn't so great, in that it only has one of the photorevised versions (for example, go to Carthage MO).

[empirestate]

 My favorite platform for browsing and downloading the maps is: http://ngmdb.usgs.gov/maps/TopoView/

But the ArcGIS platform is handy in other ways–I'm actually going through usends.com with it right now.

[Quillz]

Neat tool, thanks for the link. Most of my neighborhood didn't exist before 1975, I can see looking at these various old maps that only a few streets around where I live were even built at that time.

[bassoon1986]

I am having way too much fun with this resource. Thanks Dale!

[usends]

My favorite platform for browsing and downloading the maps is: http://ngmdb.usgs.gov/maps/TopoView/

Thanks for sharing that link -- that's better than the interface on the USGS Store website.

[empirestate]

My favorite platform for browsing and downloading the maps is: http://ngmdb.usgs.gov/maps/TopoView/

Thanks for sharing that link -- that's better than the interface on the USGS Store website.

Yes, definitely...and the "browse" images are actually of sufficient resolution that you don't even have to download every map you want to look at.

[Quillz]

I find this interesting because a particular interchange near my house has been completely rebuilt and restriped many times since 1994. (Although only the former would be reflected on these maps).