About Block Before

59,890 pages covering 289 counties in 5 states, with more being added. The search for historic topographic maps covers the whole country: type any town or address to see the survey sheets that show it.

Start from Explore to browse by state and county, or from Search to look up a town, a building, a business or a name.

The material comes from public collections: federal agencies, the Library of Congress, the Internet Archive and other open archives. The rights page lists every source and the basis on which it is republished, and each page states its own.

Scanned text is machine-read. Text taken from scanned books, newspapers and forms was read by software and is shown as it was read, without correction, so it contains reading errors. Pages that carry such text say so and link to the scan.

Maps and photographs are shown as their archive published them, with the photographer credited where the record names one.

Drawings that appear at the top of some pages are decorative illustrations made for this site. They are not photographs or records, and each is labelled.

The site's own words. Headings, short introductions, summaries and the research guides are written by the site. Passages quoted from a source are set as quotations and name the source.

Block Before is published by BEE2.IO LLC. It is free to use and has no accounts. It shows advertisements for the publisher's own apps and carries no third-party advertising. The privacy page describes what the site collects, and the terms describe how the material may be used.

If something is wrong, use "Correct this page" at the foot of any page, or write to info@blockbefore.com with the page address. Every request is read and checked against the source record the page cites.