Naturally, my brain queued up Holiday Road and I was “transported” back to my childhood and heading to my family’s annual two week stay at the Connecticut shore in our station wagon, however much I begged to go to Cape Cod instead! This nostalgic detour took me “down the road” where I found some interesting older highway maps that the Department of Transportation’s Highway Division has made available on their website. In fact, the State Library also has many of these and other maps in its collections which we are working to add to our digital repository.
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| Road map of Massachusetts from 1931 (MassDOT archives) |
So, what else does the State Library have, you might ask? As part of the Mapping Massachusetts and Atlas digitization projects, the State Library has scanned many of its transportation-related resources, chronicling the evolution of the state’s roads and infrastructure. The historical atlases reveal not only highways but also the homes, businesses, and landmarks that once lined them. Want to see if your town or city is included? Explore our DSpace digital repository or browse our Flickr site.
You’ll also find the Annual Reports of the Highway Division in DSpace, including the first report from 1892, when an agent, Mr. C. L. Weeks, was sent on a mission “to traverse six hundred miles of highways, including portions of every county of the Commonwealth, except Nantucket [in order to] obtain a photographic record [to] present in a most unquestionable way the actual state of the principal thoroughfares in various parts of the Commonwealth.” The photos from his journey? You can see them in our repository!
Take a “road trip” through history with the State Library’s collections—no folding required.
You’ll also find the Annual Reports of the Highway Division in DSpace, including the first report from 1892, when an agent, Mr. C. L. Weeks, was sent on a mission “to traverse six hundred miles of highways, including portions of every county of the Commonwealth, except Nantucket [in order to] obtain a photographic record [to] present in a most unquestionable way the actual state of the principal thoroughfares in various parts of the Commonwealth.” The photos from his journey? You can see them in our repository!
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| Photograph of the road from Cottage City to Vineyard Haven, station no. 284, Cottage City [1892 Report of the Highway Commission] |
Take a “road trip” through history with the State Library’s collections—no folding required.
Head of Technical Services