Historic Arizona County Road Maps

Arizona Historic County Road Maps, 1883 - 1937
This collection of historic Arizona county maps includes maps of each Arizona county, dating from the late 1880s to 1937. Most of the late 1880s to early 1920s maps were produced by the County Engineer or County Surveyor and published by the county Board of Supervisors. Some of the maps appear to be commercially published and a few have no publication information.

Besides roads and trails, these late 19th - early 20th century maps generally show the extent of public land surveys, railroads and a variety of other cultural features. Depending on the county, the maps may show mines and associated mining activities, ranches and agricultural features, irrigation features such as canals and wells, or include annotations showing telephone/telegraph lines.

In 1937, the Arizona State Highway Department published a series of detailed county road maps under the title "General Highway and Transportation Map Arizona." Each county map consists of multiple sheets scaled at 1:126,000, or approximately two miles per inch. The maps depict several types of roads, bridges and railroad crossings and airfields. They also depict a wide variety of buildings, such as farm houses, dwellings, stores, hotels and churches, to name only a few. Finally, the set includes inset maps for selected small towns and settlements in Arizona.

Due to the large size, the following county maps were scanned in two or more sections: Apache (1918), Pima (1922), Pinal (1908), Yavapai (1920) and Yuma (1923). This selection of historic county road maps represents a very small portion of the maps held by the Arizona State Archives.