Finally found it!!! Maps baby!!!

Yes Yes Yes after a year or so of seaching the web and local libraries I finally found the maps I have been looking for. The earliest maps I can find for this area are from 1939 but show tons and tons of homes that werent there in the 1970's map. Here is the link to the site all you do is search the town then when you click on the map it will ask you to open or save the PDF file. It will allow you to zoom in and also print sections of the map that you want.

http://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/b2c/start/(xcm=r3standardpitrex_prd)/.do

Hope this is helpful to you guys.

Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, the link is not working for me. Anyone else finding this to be a dead link/url?
 
I read this post the other day and followed the link to check it out. I had been to the USGS site before but didnt use this map function. This time however I did a search of my town and also where I grew up, which is rural and where my wifes family owns land, again in a rural area.

These maps went back to 1934 and show alot of old house places that are now gone, unless you know where to look! I downloaded the TerraGo toolbar and I think it is going to be a very handy tool along with the maps. With the TerraGo you can place your pointer on an old house place and get the coordinates, then using GPS(which I already have) I can follow the GPS to whatever old place I want to.

This could be a very handy tool and I appreciate the link information. Now if I could just figure out how to do an overlay with it.
I know this is an older post and you may have figured it out by now.... But what I do is download GOOGLE EARTH, then go to USGS maps. When you find the map you want download the KMZ version and it will automatically overlay the map onto google earth for you. I then use the tools within Google Earth to to mark-up and measure etc.
Hope this helps~ Galen
 
Be sure and check out the Library of Congress for maps of your area as well. You can find some really old maps of some areas. If you are familiar with the area you can estmate the locations of landmarks drawn on the map. I found an old pre-1800s Spanish map of my parish (county) that depicted the locations of freshwater springs and other water sources that have long since dried up. I've found a few interesting things arounds some of those sites that I managed to pinpoint.

https://www.loc.gov/maps
 
I am wondering how accurate these old maps are. I have a 30 acre permission with an old house site on it. Maps pre 1905 do not show anything there but starting in 1905 it shows 3 houses about 700 feet apart. Problem is when I overlay the map to something more modern the house site I know of is not any of the 3 shown. It’s about 500’ off. Would there be that big of a discrepancy?
 
dp.la is a great resource. Like Google, it searches through hundreds of public libraries, including the Library of Congress.

If you live in a historic area, type in the name of your town followed by "maps" (ex. Boston maps). You'll get tons of results, some of them in lesser-known state or local university collections that search engines may overlook.
 
Also, if you really want to go deep diving for old maps, go to ArchiveGrid.

Like dp.la, it searches through libraries and university archives, but on a much broader level. You'll get results for digitized maps that you can view online, but also maps that aren't available for online viewing (can be requested in person).
 
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