Ohio Maps - More Historic Topo Maps - 1950s Maps

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the State of Ohio, completed a topographic survey of Ohio between 1898 and 1916. 208 detailed maps covering the entire state were printed in 15 minute sections (quadrangles). In a few cases, the maps were updated when reprinted. A number of quadrangles were redone by the Army during WWII. Beginning in the 1950's these maps were replaced by more detailed 7.5 minute sections and the historic 15' quadrangles are now hard to find.

New: geopdf versions of these maps are now available for free download from the USGS Map Locator. You can also search the Historical Topographic Map Collection by name rather than location. I have unzipped a few topos and made them available here for easier downloading to mobile devices using pdf viewers such as the Avenza PDF Maps. The iPhone/iPad will actually show your approximate location on the historic topo when you are "in the field". NETROnline's HistoricAerials.com site has loaded these topos onto their site, georeferenced with their historic aerials.

Cleveland | Chagrin Falls | Euclid | Garrettsville

A two year project searching Ohio libraries, resulted in scans of all the Ohio maps in 4 sections (8.5" x 11"). A portion of the state is in the process of being sitched together and converted to DjVu format for high resolution viewing on this website. Each file is between 2 and 7 Megabytes. To view the the maps you need a free web browser plug-in from djvu.com (available for Mac, Windows and Unix/Linux). Give your browser plenty of extra memory by closing other unneeded programs. The quality of the files is excellent and well worth the wait. DjVU allows fast zooming and panning once the file is fully loaded, but can be viewed while still loading. You can also save the map files to your computer. Right click (Windows), and choose "Save Target As..." Open the files using your browser's open command in the file menu. Make sure all file types are displayed in the browser open dialog box.

Representative city names shown to help determine quad locations. Larger city name is quadrangle name.

	82°00' - 81°45'	81°45' - 81°30'	81°30' - 81°15'	81°15' - 81°00'	81°00' - 80°45'	80°45' - 80°30'
42°00' 41°45'	Cleveland Vicinity Map combines sections of 3 quads to show Cleveland area on one map.
41°45' 41°30'
41°30' 41°15'
41°15' 41°00'
41°00' 40°45'
40°45' 40°30'
40°30' 40°15'
40°15' 40°00'
	82°00' - 81°45'	81°45' - 81°30'	81°30' - 81°15'	81°15' - 81°00'	81°00' - 80°45'	80°45' - 80°30'

The maps were created by a federal agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, and are in the public domain. The digitized versions are shared for historical and educational purposes. Not for profit use of them is encouraged (see license below). Please credit this web page (railsandtrails.com/USGS1900/OH/) and thus the libraries that shared their original maps. More information on using DjVu files is available at: railsandtrails.com/DjVu.htm

Thanks to the following libraries for graciously allowing their original maps to be scanned and shared:
Case Western Reserve Geology Department
Cleveland Public Library
Columbus Metropolitan Library
Kent State University Map Library
Ohio State University: Library Map Room, Department of Geological Science (Orton Hall)
Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Geological Survey
State Library of Ohio.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

200 dpi jpg versions of the maps are available at historical.maptech.com.

updated 9/27/11