Florida Maps
This entry was originally written by the Florida Pioneer Descendants Certification Program Committee of the Florida State Genealogical Society, Inc. for Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources.
The P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History, University of Florida Libraries in Gainesville (see Florida Archives, Libraries, and Societies) owns one of the largest collections of Florida and Caribbean maps, and many of them are original prints or drawings. An online search is available of over 2,300 images from 1564 to 1926, which includes the Sanborn maps of Florida. See http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge/fhmaps.html. The Florida Historical Society Library in Cocoa has many original maps from early-to-modern Florida, although they do not have an online catalog at this time. Some universities outside of Florida have excellent resources for maps on the Internet, such as University of Alabama, Cartographic Research Laboratory, at http://alabamamaps.ua.edu/historicalmaps/florida/index.html; and University of Texas at Austin'Perry-Castañeda Library at www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/florida.html.
The PALMM (see Background Sources above) World Map Collection at http://palmm.fcla.edu/map includes maps from the following contributors: Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Florida International University, Florida State University, University of Florida, University of Miami, University of North Florida, and the University of South Florida.
Sanborn maps (see page 5), which date late 1800s to early 1900s, and other fire insurance maps should not be overlooked for urban areas. The Map Department, University of Florida Libraries (see above) has an excellent set of Sanborn original duplicate copies transferred from the Library of Congress. Many public and academic libraries now own the microfilm collection. Check the online catalogs or the reference department at local libraries.
- Bradbury, Alford G. A Chronology of Florida Post Offices. Sewall's Point, Fla.: Florida Classics Library, 1993.
- Cline, Howard F. Provisional Historical Gazetteer with Locational Notes on Florida Colonial Communities. New York: Garland Pub., Co., 1974.
- Long, John H., ed. Atlas of Historical County Boundaries: Florida. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
- McMullen, Edwin Wallace. English Topographic Terms in Florida, 1563'1874. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1953.
- Morris, Allen. Florida Place Names: Alachua to Zolfo Springs. Sarasota, Fla.: Pineapple Press, 1995.