Mapsnap is a program designed to take old Sanborn insurance maps (block-by-block maps of every US city from 1870-1960) and aligning them with modern maps.
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The Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library has a really cool app called Atlascope that overlays these old Sanborn maps with current GoogleMaps in the Boston area. You can see housing developments that never came to be, owners from the 1800's, and how some buildings are exactly the same. Still a wip, but cool to look at on your phone when you walk around!
Man oh man, is this up my alley. Back when I did ghost tours in Austin, I spent hours in the history center, a good chunk of those poring over Sanborn maps.
Also of interest to mapheads: Augustus Koch, who made dozens of birds-eye-view maps of US cities in the 19th century.
In case anyone is wondering whether there is anything similar for the UK, the National Library of Scotland has an amazing site full of digitised historical maps: https://maps.nls.uk
Of particular interest is their Georeferenced Overlays viewer, which shows selectable historic maps laid over modern maps. I use it regularly to see the historic context of places I am visiting.
Oh, that is such a good travel tip.
I have done this for neighborhoods I’m familiar with.
It is easier if your local library has physical copies, but it is a bit of a slog either way, worse browsing online archives.
A city may take multiple large volumes indexed to whatever degree they are, in a single volume. Then there are multiple publishings as structural changes are updated.
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