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Using Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps Online: FIMO (Sanborn in Color)

View very detailed building-level historical maps for Michigan plus 12 U.S. metropolitan areas which can be exported as .jpg images or GeoTIFF.

FIMO

Fire Insurance Maps Online (FIMo) This link opens in a new window
This resource contains full color detailed town maps of 339 Michigan towns from 1880 to 1960. Most content is from the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company, but this growing database will continue to add fire insurance maps from other publishers and other large scale maps. The database is searchable by address, by coordinates, or by a clickable map interface. New: as of June 2022, also includes maps from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin.

Using FIMO

Step1: Enter the database and choose between using an interactive map to select your location, or use the Place Name search.

Step 2: Search for your community of interest. Then click "Show" next to a map year to reveal the index diagram. Take note of your page number of interest (in this case page 79).

Step 3: Right click on the publication title to open it in a new browser window or tab.

Step 4: Select your page number of interest. View the page in the larger window, then click 'Download' to download the image.