Decorative drawing: a three-storey commercial block with shopfronts below and windows above. Not a photograph of this place.

What your street looked like

Old maps, photographs and building records of American towns, gathered from federal archives with a link to every original.

Try a town or hamlet, a full street address, a National Register property, a person named in a document, or a business in the old atlases. Location is used only if you press the target button.

State County Place

The archive is growing: 2 states published so far, with more on the way. Tell us which state or county you want first and we will build toward it.

Start here

Block Before is a source-linked local history archive. Begin with a place you know, then move from its map to the records connected to that ground.

Search a town, street address, property, or name. Place-name search stays in your browser.
Open a map or record. Every source label leads back to the archive that holds the original.
Keep useful pages. Save a page or copy a citation from its research tools.

What is available now

Archive records: Massachusetts, Ohio. Historic topographic map search: nationwide. Other record types are added county by county, so a map may be available where a photo, nomination, or local narrative is not.

Browse the archive

102 counties