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Former-use decoder
What the lettering on a Sanborn sheet means, what each use looks like on the plan, and why people doing property research look for it. This is a dictionary of the document. It says nothing about any particular property.
… entries shown.
One page per term, with examples
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Reading a word on a map is not a finding.
Lettering records what a surveyor was told or saw on one date. It does not establish that a use existed
before or after that date, how it operated, or what is in the ground. Bring the sheet to an environmental
professional and let them interpret it. Methodology and limits.