I met Sanborn maps before I wrote Wicked Flagstaff, but last year I fell in all the way. I'm Susan Johnson, co-founder of Freaky Foot Tours, and these old fire insurance maps are my favorite research shortcut. They tell you, block by block and decade by decade, exactly what kind of town Flagstaff really was. Including the parts the town would rather you not know about.
What are Sanborn maps?
Sanborn maps are fire insurance maps, drawn to assess fire risk building by building so insurers knew what to charge. They date back to 1866, and you can browse them free on the Library of Congress website. Each sheet carries intricate codes for building material (adobe, brick, wood), roofing, windows, doors and basements, all noted on every individual structure. Because Sanborn resurveyed towns every five, ten or fifteen years, you can watch a place grow in sequence. Flagstaff has sheets online from 1890, 1895, 1901, 1910 and 1916, and the town's growth across those five snapshots is something to see.
What the maps reveal about Southside
The codes extend to what a building was used for. Saloons show up as "Sal." or spelled out, "R" usually means residence, a church is a "C." What stopped me cold was how many buildings south of the railroad tracks were stamped "F.B." or "Fem. Brdg." Those abbreviations stand for female boarding establishments, otherwise known as brothels. The 1910 Sanborn map marks more than 15 buildings with those initials. One neighborhood, fifteen-plus houses of ill repute, all mapped in tidy insurance-company ink.
In Wicked Flagstaff I devote a chapter to taming the town, which meant the brothels along with the gambling halls and saloons. Through the 1890s the hard-working, righteous citizenry passed ordinance after ordinance against their more lackadaisical south-of-the-tracks neighbors, lobbying the newly formed town council for sin taxes hefty enough to drive Southside out of business. It did not work quickly. The neighborhood kept its own institutions, like the Tourist Home, where Basque sheepherders once boarded, and its stories have outlived every ordinance.
Walk this story
The fight to tame the town comes up on our nightly Flagstaff Haunted History Tour, $29, 7 PM every evening with an 8 PM walk added Fridays and Saturdays. And if your group wants the full south-of-the-tracks story on the streets where it happened, we offer Southside walks as private group bookings. Reach us through the contact page and we will set it up.
