The Sanborn Co. was founded in 1867 by D.A. Sanborn, to draw maps of the downtown districts of cities across the U.S. These maps could then be consulted by insurance companies if a building burned to research different characteristics about the business and the physical structure. The company stopped making the fire insurance maps in 1961, due to other sources being used to obtain the needed information. Today, they serve as a wonderful resource for tracing the growth of cities and tracking where businesses were located decades ago. We have these maps on microfilm for the entire state of Wisconsin. We also have copies of the actual maps in paper format for cities in our four-county area. The dates range from approximately the 1880s to the 1920s for our area. The maps were not issued regularly, so do not expect any pattern as to when the maps came out for various cities.