How to Find Old Maps and Historical Aerial Photos of Your Property (Free)

An aerial photograph taken in 1938 can show you the barn that stood where your garage is now, the orchard that was cleared for your subdivision, the creek that was put in a culvert, and the farm lane that became your street. Older maps push the story back further: a county atlas from the 1870s may print the name of the family who owned your land, and the original federal survey plat may show the field it was carved from. Almost all of this is free if you know which agency or library holds it. This guide walks through each source in roughly the order you should try them, from a five-minute look in Google Earth to ordering a single frame of 1940s county film from the National Archives.

1. Start with Google Earth Pro's Historical Imagery

Google Earth Pro, the free desktop program, has the quickest time machine. Search your address, then click the clock icon in the toolbar above the map. A time slider appears with a notch for each date Google has imagery for that view; drag it left for older pictures and right for newer ones. Each notch is labeled with the capture date. Coverage is uneven: a city block may have dozens of dates, while a rural parcel may have only a handful, and the oldest notches are often low-resolution scans of older aerial surveys rather than satellite images. Zooming in or out changes which dates are shown, so if the slider looks thin, try a slightly wider view.

In September 2024 Google added a historical imagery layer to Google Earth on the web and on mobile, saying some locations reach back as far as 80 years. For a broader look at change over time, Google's Timelapse animates satellite imagery starting in 1984. Timelapse is too coarse to show a single house, but it clearly shows when farmland around you turned into subdivisions. The web version of Google Earth needs no download. For anything before the 1980s in most places, though, you will need the government and university sources below.

2. Search USGS EarthExplorer for Free Aerial Photo Frames

The U.S. Geological Survey's EarthExplorer is the largest free source of historical aerial photographs in the country. In the Search Criteria tab, type your address or a place name, click Show, and the map centers on it. Then open the Data Sets tab, expand the aerial imagery category, and tick the collections you want. Three are most useful for property research:

• Aerial Photo Single Frames: more than 6.5 million frames flown by USGS and other federal agencies, with dates beginning in 1937. This is where the oldest federal photos usually turn up.
• NHAP (National High Altitude Photography): flown 1980–1989 at 1:80,000 (black-and-white) and 1:58,000 (color infrared). Good for a nationwide early-1980s snapshot, though at high altitude a house is small.
• NAPP (National Aerial Photography Program): flown 1987–2007 at a nominal 1:40,000, more than 1.3 million images in black-and-white and color infrared. Sharper than NHAP and useful for tracking 1990s changes.

Searching is open to anyone, but you need a free USGS login to download. Medium-resolution scans (about 400 dpi) and any existing high-resolution scans (about 1,000 dpi) download at no cost. If a frame has never been scanned at high resolution, USGS will make an on-demand film scan for $30 per frame plus a $5 handling fee. The medium-resolution file is usually enough to identify buildings on a lot. Use the "View Entire Roll" option to see neighboring frames, since the frame centered nearest your house may not be the clearest one.

3. Find the 1930s–1950s USDA County Aerials

Beginning in the mid-1930s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture photographed farm counties across the country so it could measure crop acreage for its farm programs. The agency that did this has changed names several times (Agricultural Adjustment Administration, then Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, now the Farm Service Agency), but the result is the same: county-by-county aerial coverage, often repeated every few years, that captures rural and small-town America before and just after World War II. If your house sits on land that was farmland in 1940, these are the photos most likely to show what was there.

Where the film lives depends on its date. The FSA's Aerial Photography Field Office (APFO) in Salt Lake City holds county film from the mid-1950s onward; its largest single block is ASCS film from the mid-1950s through 1982. For imagery made before 1955, APFO's own catalog tells researchers to contact the National Archives, where USDA aerials are in Record Group 145 (Records of the Farm Service Agency). The National Archives has records schedules providing for more APFO film to transfer over time, and we could not confirm the current transfer status for every county, so if you cannot find a year in one place, ask the other. The National Archives' county list for this material is called Special List 25; the cartographic staff at carto@nara.gov can tell you what exists for your county.

The faster route is often a state copy. Many universities and state agencies hold paper prints of the same USDA flights, and several have scanned them, as described in section 5.

4. Use National Archives Cartographic Records

The National Archives' aerial photography holdings run to more than 35 million photographs dating from 1918 to 2011, mostly made by federal agencies and held by the Cartographic Branch in College Park, Maryland. Beyond the USDA film, they include photography from other agencies that flew domestic projects. Very little of the film itself is online, but the indexes for the USDA (RG 145) aerials have been digitized, which lets you identify the flight, roll, and frame numbers before ordering a reproduction or hiring a researcher. Plan on this being a mail-order process measured in weeks, not minutes.

5. Check University and State Aerial Photo Collections

University map libraries collected aerial photographs for decades, and some now offer them free online. These are the ones we confirmed this month:

• UC Santa Barbara Library (California and beyond): more than 2.5 million images, which the library calls the largest known academic aerial photo collection, dating to the 1920s and concentrated on California. Search and view through its FrameFinder tool; the library ended on-demand scanning in June 2024 and now posts newly digitized images there as free downloads.
• PennPilot (Pennsylvania): historical aerials of Pennsylvania from the late 1930s into the 1970s, a Pennsylvania Geological Survey project now hosted by Penn State's PASDA. The PennPilot address opens the current map viewer.
• Illinois Historical Aerial Photography (ILHAP): USDA county photos of Illinois from the late 1930s and 1940s, scanned and posted by county as free TIFF or JPEG files on the Illinois State Geological Survey's clearinghouse. The University of Illinois Map Library holds the paper prints plus a larger set of about 190,000 Illinois aerials up to 2005.
• University of Florida (Florida): about 160,000 photos from 1937 to 1990, which the library describes as the most complete Florida collection outside the National Archives. Browse by county and year or by map at UF Digital Collections.
• University of Washington Libraries (Washington): more than 80,000 aerial photographs of selected Washington areas from 1944 on, strongest for Puget Sound. These are not online; use the library's aerial photography guide and project map to see coverage, then visit the Map Collection in Suzzallo Library.
• Indiana: the Indiana Geological and Water Survey at Indiana University built the Indiana Historical Aerial Photo Index, a map of county photo coverage from the 1930s to the 1980s that gives you the photo numbers to order from the archive that holds the prints.

For other states, search "[your state] historical aerial photography" plus "library" or "geological survey." State GIS clearinghouses and many county GIS viewers also carry older orthophoto layers (Will County, Illinois, for example, publishes a 1939 layer), and your county assessor's office may have its own past flights. Assessors also often keep old property record cards with a photograph of the building, which can be as valuable as an aerial.

6. Historic Aerials by NETR: Free to Browse, Paid to Download

HistoricAerials.com, run by Nationwide Environmental Title Research (NETR), puts aerial photos from many decades, with some dating to the 1920s, and historical topo maps into one map viewer. Anyone can browse; non-subscribers see ads and watermarked images. Clean downloads cost money: as of November 2026, a pre-2000 aerial JPG costs $10 at 1800 pixels, $30 at 3600, and $90 at 7200, newer imagery costs half that, and a 9×9-inch print is $60. Subscriptions add download credits. The viewer is an excellent free way to find out which years exist for your address; you can then often get the same original federal frame free from EarthExplorer or a state collection.

7. Read Sanborn Maps for Town and City Lots

If your house is in a town or city, Sanborn fire insurance maps are the single best map source from the 1880s to the mid-1900s. They show every building's footprint, number of stories, construction material, and outbuildings, lot by lot, and successive editions show additions and demolitions. The Library of Congress has digitized a large share free. Our guide to reading Sanborn fire insurance maps explains the colors and symbols, and Sanborns are also one of the strongest clues in our guide to finding out when your house was built.

8. Download Historical USGS Topographic Maps

USGS topographic maps show buildings as small black squares, along with roads, rail lines, schools, churches, cemeteries, mines, and contour lines. In rural areas, those squares were often plotted house by house, so a 1910s or 1940s topo can tell you whether a building stood on your land. The Historical Topographic Map Collection covers maps published from 1884 to 2006, and every sheet can be downloaded free through topoView in GeoPDF, GeoTIFF, JPEG, or KMZ format. Zoom to your location, then use topoView's year filter to list every edition that covers it. Compare editions: a building that appears in 1915 and is gone by 1955 is a lead worth chasing in deeds and newspapers.

9. Find 1800s Plat Maps and County Atlases

From the 1850s, commercial publishers sold county wall maps and later bound county atlases showing who owned each parcel of land, often with a dot for each house and the owner's name printed on it. The Library of Congress holds nearly two thousand of these county landownership maps and atlases, published between 1700 and 1923, and most have been digitized; search its collection for county landownership maps. County atlases from the 1870s onward frequently add enlarged town plans, lists of subscribers, and engravings of farms.

The David Rumsey Map Collection has more than 150,000 historical maps freely available online, including many county atlases, and its Georeferencer lets you lay an old map over a modern one. Old Maps Online is a search portal rather than a library: pan to your area or type a place name, narrow the date range, and it lists maps held by many libraries, sending you to the holder to view them. The Digital Public Library of America searches map records contributed by the Library of Congress, the Rumsey collection, and hundreds of state and university libraries at once. Your state historical society and state library often hold atlases that were never digitized; find yours in our directory of historical societies by state.

10. Look at the Original Federal Survey Plat

In the federal public-land states, the federal government surveyed land into townships and sections before it was sold or homesteaded. The Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office Records site offers free images of those original survey plats and the surveyors' field notes, alongside the land patents that transferred land to its first private owners. The plats are drawn at township scale, so you will not see a house, but they often show the first fields, cabins, roads, and streams the surveyors crossed, and the patent names the first owner of your section. Our guides to tracing your property's deed history and finding old land records and homestead patents explain how to connect that first owner to the present day.

11. Overlay an Old Map on Today's Map

Old maps rarely line up with modern ones, because streets were renamed, lots were replatted, and some maps were simply drawn inaccurately. Georeferencing fixes this by pinning points on the old map to the same points on a modern map, then stretching the old image to fit. You need features that exist on both: road intersections, a church, a railroad crossing, a section corner. Pick points spread across the whole map, not clustered in one corner.

Three free tools handle this. The David Rumsey Georeferencer works on maps in that collection. Map Warper is a free, open-source website where you upload any scanned map (after creating an account), place control points, and download the corrected image or view it over a modern map. For more control, the free desktop GIS program QGIS has a built-in Georeferencer under Layer › Georeferencer: load your scan, add ground control points, choose a transformation (the basic "Polynomial 1" needs at least three points, and the QGIS manual recommends at least four), and run it. The result can sit under your property boundary from the county GIS, showing exactly where a vanished barn stood relative to your fence line.

What Old Maps and Aerials Can Tell You

Line up a 1938 aerial, a 1950s topo, and a current satellite view, and patterns jump out: a rectangle of bare ground where a house or barn was removed, a curved fence line that follows a road before it was straightened, tree rows that were once an orchard or windbreak, a pond that has been filled, or a lane that became your driveway. Aerials also date things. If your house is not in a 1952 frame but is in a 1957 frame, you have narrowed its construction to five years, which you can then confirm with permits, tax records, and deeds. Ground disturbances visible on old photos, such as filled ponds, former dumps, or fuel tanks next to a vanished farm building, are also worth knowing about before you dig.

Tips for Map and Aerial Research

• Work backward from the newest image. Match landmarks year by year so you never lose track of which field or lot is yours.
• Note the flight date and frame number. You will need them to order a better copy, and they let others check your work.
• Check the season. Leaf-off spring photos show buildings and foundations; summer photos show crops and tree lines.
• Learn your legal description. Township, range, and section (or subdivision lot and block) from your deed are how plats and atlases are indexed.
• Use paid viewers to scout, free archives to download. The same federal frame is often available free once you know the year.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I see an aerial view of my house in the past for free?

Start with the historical imagery clock in Google Earth Pro on a desktop computer. For older views, search your address in USGS EarthExplorer and download frames from the Aerial Photo Single Frames, NHAP, and NAPP collections with a free account. Many states also have free university or state collections of 1930s to 1950s county aerials.

How far back do historical aerial photos go?

Federal aerial photography of US counties began in earnest in the mid-1930s, and USGS single frames start in 1937. Some cities and universities hold photos from the 1920s. Before that, use maps: Sanborn maps from the 1880s, USGS topographic maps from 1884, and county landownership maps and atlases from the mid-1800s.

Where are the old USDA aerial photos of my county?

The Farm Service Agency's Aerial Photography Field Office in Salt Lake City holds county film from the mid-1950s onward. For earlier USDA photos, the agency directs researchers to the National Archives, Record Group 145. Many state universities and geological surveys hold copies, and some have scanned them for free download.

Is HistoricAerials.com free?

Browsing the viewer is free, with ads and watermarked images. Clean downloads and prints are paid; as of November 2026 a pre-2000 aerial download starts at $10. Use it to find which years exist, then check EarthExplorer or your state collection for a free copy of the same federal photo.

How do I find old maps of my property by address?

Search your address or town in USGS topoView for topographic maps, in the Library of Congress for Sanborn maps and county landownership maps, and in Old Maps Online, which searches many libraries at once. For rural land, look up your township, range, and section in the BLM General Land Office Records for the original survey plat.