[PW] Historical road atlas

[Bradley Scott]

http://socialexplorer.com, mentioned by a previous respondent on this
query, looks like a good source of historical demographic data.

However, when I checked out a couple of areas with which I have a
certain degree of historical knowledge, it appeared that the street
layout shown on the 1940 map was the same as the street layouts shown
on the 2000 map, including some housing developments that I'm quite
certain did not exist in 1940.  This suggests that they're overlaying
the period demographic data on a single standard modern-era street
map.  Good for giving modern viewers easy geographical reference
points; not so good for historical mapping.

Again, it does appear to be a good source for historical
population-density maps, though.

Unfortunately I can't suggest a single all-purpose online source for
the requested information.  If I were researching the route of a
decades-old road trip, I would go trolling through local library
catalogs, WorldCat and/or online selling sites, in that order, for
copies of highway atlases of the approximate year.  Try using subject
terms like "roads", "United States", and "maps" in the local library
catalog or WorldCat, while limiting the publication date to a range
like 1960-1969.  See, for example, the item described in OCLC record #
2491125, which is held by 41 libraries and should be requestable by
interlibrary loan.   State and local maps might be locatable in the
same fashion, with appropriate substitutions of subject terms etc.

Bradley A. Scott