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PPHS Mallory's Hidden Secrets: Community History Resources

Resources detailing the history and evolution of 3029 E. Washington Street, Indianapolis, IN, former site of the P.R. Mallory and Co, Inc. (originator of Duracell batteries) plant and current site of Purdue Polytechnic High School.

Sanborn Fire Maps

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are historical documents that provide perhaps the best overview of a changing landscape in a neighborhood. Created by the Sanborn company roughly once every 10 years from the 1880s through the 1960s, these maps guided insurance companies in making underwriting decisions at a time when fire was extremely common, due to gas lights and fires in heating and kitchen appliances. 

The Sanborn maps are at a scale of 50 feet to 1 inch (1:600), and the print maps are large - 21 inches x 25 inches. They were published in volumes that covered an entire community. Large cities frequently had multiple volumes. 

The maps include street plans, with addresses, list of churches, schools, businesses, and an outline of each building and outbuilding with the location of windows, doors, property boundaries, fire walls, natural features, building use, and composition of building materials used in the structure. ("Introduction to the Collection – Sanborn Maps"The Library of Congress. Retrieved January 5, 2017.) Everything from the locations of homes of prominent individuals to single outhouses are shown on the maps. 

Indianapolis Sanborn Map collection

To identify which map you need, use this digitized index of the Sanborn collection, provided by Indiana University.https://libraries.indiana.edu/union-list-sanborn-maps

Each year will have a separate index. Look for Washington Street, then the street number range that contains 3029.

Indianapolis Baist Atlas Plan

Baist Real Estate Atlases.

The maps show individual building "footprints", complete with construction details, such as building material (brick, adobe, frame, etc.), height (of larger buildings), number of stories, location of doors, windows, chimneys and elevators, use of structure (dwelling, hotel, church, etc.), street address, and occasionally the ethnicity of the occupants.