Maps

A Reddit post in r/Charleston led me to this cool online collection of pre-1945 USGS topographical maps at the University of Texas Libraries.

I love looking at old maps and seeing what areas used to look like and comparing them to modern maps to see how things have changed. The South Carolina collection has pretty good coverage of the Charleston area so I downloaded a few and went browsing around.

Here’s what the area just north of modern day Goose Creek looked like in 1919 (from the Summerville quadrangle map). Some of the roads in the 1919 map are still around, as is the rail line labeled Atlantic Coast.

Here’s is a screenshot from Google Maps of the same area. Visible just below and right of center is the Google Data Center. You can also see the outlines of the swampy areas on the 1919 map are prominently visible.

Maps can be so much fun.