Abstract

The Office of Coast Survey's Historical Map & Chart Collection contains over 20,000 maps and charts from the late 1700s to present day. The Collection includes some of the nation's earliest nautical charts, hydrographic surveys, topographic surveys, geodetic surveys, city plans and Civil War battle maps. The Collection is a rich primary historical archive and a testament to the artistry of copper plate engraving technology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Historical Map & Chart Project scans each map or chart and offers the images free to the public via the Coast Survey web site. The Project is managed by the Cartographic & Geospatial Technology Program of the Coast Survey Development Laboratory.

Notable offerings include maps of Vancouver's explorations; the "Wilkes Atlas" of the U.S. Exploring Expedition; James Whistler's Anacapa Island chart; an extensive Civil War collection; a large scale topographic series of Washington, D.C.; city plans; the re-engraving of the famous 1792 L'Enfant and Ellicott plan for Washington D.C.; artistic landscape perspective sketches that were an integral part of hydrographic surveys and published charts; historical maps and charts from the Mississippi, Tennessee, and Columbia Rivers; topographic maps of Cincinnati; and early 1920 charts of the Erie Barge Canal. Users of the Collection have included university libraries, state governments, Federal agencies such as the National Park Service and the U.S. Geological Survey, and Civil War enthusiasts.

Revised Friday May 14 2004by OCS Webmaster