Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, 1899-1900

San Francisco, California

The Sanborn Map Company (aka Sanborn-Perris Map Company) began creating fire insurance maps in 1867. These maps were large-scale, detailed maps showing the commercial, industrial, and residential sections of cities. They were created to assist insurance agencies in assessing the fire risk of properties. Some of the details shown on these maps include building use, sidewalk and street widths, layout and names, property boundaries, distance between buildings, house and block numbers, location of water mains, hydrants, piping, wells, cisterns, and fuel storage tanks. In many cases, as the years passed, map collections were updated by pasting new drawings directly over the original and previous drawings. Some of the maps were also color coded.

There are a number of internet sites that may aid you in deciphering the maps. This guide has a list of abbreviations and a map legend. There are more years available for San Francisco. The San Francisco Public Library has access to internet databases with Sanborn Map images from various years, and the Main Library History Center has some original volumes in their public area that can be easily perused. There is also a nice set of colorized 1905 images online in the David Rumsey Map Collection.

The black and white maps presented here are from six volumes that covered San Francisco in 1899 and 1900. To locate a specific location, consult the various indexes to locate the correct Map Sheet . Then select the appropriate link below.

• Front: first page of volume. Includes publishing information.
• Map Index: a map index to the individual map sheets, including the Key.
• Streets Index: a street index to the individual map sheets.
• Specials Index: a index of “special” places, such as businesses, buildings, etc. to the individual map sheets.

Map Sheets: