Index of Landowners from the 1917 Standard Atlas of Norton County Kansas
Copyrighted 1917 by Geo. A. Ogle & Co., Publishers and Engravers, Chicago
County land ownership maps and atlases, often called plat maps or plat books, began to appear in the eastern United States around 1850. Produced by commercial publishers, these maps identified local landowners and provided information about the topographic and cultural features of a county. Plat maps and atlases were compiled from local land records supplemented by the mapmakers’ own surveys.
After the Civil War, the county atlas became more popular, though wall maps continued to be published. Atlases were smaller, easier to handle, and allowed the addition of many more profitable features for the publishers. Such features included lists of patrons, biographical sketches and portraits of local landowners, illustrations of farms and businesses, and city maps. These embellishments supplemented the all-important township maps, which showed the boundaries and acreage of farms, locations of churches, cemeteries, schools, quarries, cheese factories and other businesses. The township maps also showed roads and railways, and topographical features such as rivers, lakes, marshlands, and hills.
This index includes all surnames from the 25 townships in Norton County. Any errors in spelling that existed in the atlas were carried over to this surname index, so be sure to check alternate spellings. Please keep in mind that we try very hard to put accurate information on these pages, but errors do sneak in sometimes. If you find an error or omission, please let us know. The 1917 Atlas of Norton County Kansas is available online at ancestry.com, as black and white images, which are not searchable. This index will assist you in finding the exact location where your ancestors lived in the county.
Transcribed by Walta Russ.