Credit

Sanborn-Perris Map Co., Nazareth PA, June 1897 — public domain, via Penn State University Libraries.

Coverage

The 1897 map covers only the built-up core of town: north to the Martin factory area (~700+ ft north of Public Square); south to the Fair Grounds south of Prospect Ave; east to Whitfield St; west to Meadow Lane / the Academy grounds, then un-streeted lot lines — plus the detached depot/railroad panel ~1,800 ft southeast of the square, with the foundry and paper box factory. Outlying farms and the townships are NOT on these sheets. (The 1928 Sanborn, 20 sheets, covers Stockertown + Upper/Lower Nazareth Twps — a later phase, not v1.)

Coverage gap: the two northern panels do not tile perfectly — a strip roughly 200 ft wide between Chestnut St and ~700 ft north of Public Square is on neither panel. The base map shows through there. The gap is in the 1897 sheets, not a bug in this viewer.

Accuracy

1897 map — good to about a house lot. The 1897 sheets were hand-drawn; this viewer pins them to the modern map as well as the surviving streets allow. Panel accuracy:

• Town core, Chestnut–Centre (S1-C): good to ~5 m.
• Centre–Walnut (S2-D) and Walnut–Fair Grounds (S2-E): approximate, good to ~15 m — the 1897 buildings that would pin the east–west direction are gone, so these panels rest on Main St alone.
• Martin factory / Knitting Mill (S1-B): approximate, good to ~60 m — the northern Belvidere St and the mill are gone; the panel rests on North St and a printed "700 ft north of Public Square" note that disagrees with the neighbouring panel by ~60 m.
• Depot / railroad (S1-A): approximate, good to ~30 m — the 1897 rail does not survive at that spot; the panel rests on the printed "1,800 ft S.E. of Public Square" note and two surviving dwellings.

Approximate panels are marked as such. Field precision is lot-level, not footprint: use the overlay to get to the right lot, then read the ground.

Sanborn key — how to read the 1897 map

Marks: X = stable · numbers (1, 2, 2½) = stories · D = dwelling · a black rectangle = boiler/engine · dashed lines = porches, sheds, or underground pipes (W.P. = water pipe) · figures like 426½ are street numbers.

Decoder: a pink "2 D" is a two-story brick dwelling; a yellow "1 X" is a one-story frame stable.

Candidate sites

Only one 1897 site qualifies as a marker: the Public Square (Nazareth Center Square) — drawn on the 1897 sheet and still a public park with no building on it. The other candidates from the plan (Fair Grounds sheds, Academy Castle/Hall, Depot, Knitting Mill, Hosiery Mill) are all built over today — houses, shops, or a factory complex stand on their sites — so they fail the "no building on current satellite" test and are not marked. If a site isn't marked, the overlay still shows where it stood.

What this answers

V1 answers "what stood here", not "can I detect here". Land status is UNVERIFIED for every site except the Public Square (a named public place still visibly open). Check ownership and local rules before detecting anywhere.

Pins

Tap the map, then "Drop pin here" to save a spot with a short note. Pins live only in this browser on this device — there is no account, no backend, and no sync. The overlay itself is not tappable per-building in v1 (there is no footprint data layer).

Offline

V1 needs connectivity for base-map tiles. The 1897 overlay is bundled with this page: if tiles fail, the overlay still renders on a blank background. With no signal at all, the page loads from cache where the browser allows it.

Pins live only on this device (browser storage). Tap a pin to go to it.

No pins yet. Tap the map, then "Drop pin here".