A printable copy of this Guide is available here (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).

La Crosse History Unbound http://lacrossehistory.org go to the heading for “maps”

The maps are listed here in alphabetical order by title but there is a nice listing of just plat maps/atlases under “plat books and maps” at http://lacrossehistory.org/maps/maps.htm.  We have online 1874, 1890, 1900, 1906, 1913, 1915 and 1931 for La Crosse County. You will find other maps here, too, such as links to Upper Mississippi River navigational charts 1905-1978, the Wisconsin Public Land Survey records, map of the La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad Connections (1855), and the bird’s-eye views of La Crosse.




 

Maps and Atlases of La Crosse County and the Upper Mississippi River http://uwdc.library.wisc.edu/collections/WI/LaCrosseLocHist

This group of material includes maps and atlases of La Crosse County of a variety of types, including plat (rural land ownership), highway, soil, topographic; city of La Crosse (Wisconsin) including zoning, parks, and streets; other La Crosse County municipalities; and representative pre- and post-lock and dam charts and maps of the Upper Mississippi River. The date range of this map collection is approximately 1854-1987 and explores the rich history of the area from the days of logging to the post-lock and dam system on the Mississippi River.

You will notice the icons that are labeled, such as “plat maps.” If you click on the icon, the computer has done a search for you already of the plat maps within this collection.

If you want to broaden your search to include more than just La Crosse, you can click on the “search the collection” at the top of the page. It automatically thinks you want to just search our maps that we entered, but you can change that default to “any sub-collection” to search across the entire State of Wisconsin collection.

For instance, Kenosha and plat will bring up Plat Book of Racine and Kenosha Counties, Wisconsin (1908).

There are two different ways in which maps are presented on this site.

1. Anything in a book or bound atlas form has an icon like
 



Once you click on the icon, a screen with the information about the map or book will appear similar to this:

You’ll notice that most of the atlas is in the “Atlas of La Crosse County, Wisconsin” chapter pp. 5-137. Not much help! Click on it and is it though you are paging through the atlas. Once you have landed on a page you want to look at more closely, click on the LEFT side where it says “Image detail.”

Then you will get a different set of navigation tools which are similar to the loose or unbound pages. You can zoom in or out. I recommend changing the drop down box to XLarge. This gives the best view and highest resolution. It also can take a little bit if you have a slow Internet connection.


2. And loose maps, pages or photographs have a thumbnail image of the map.
 


The navigation here is exactly like the bound once you have selected “image detail” on the left side.

This LSTA funded project is a collaborative effort completed by the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center and the La Crosse Public Library. Maps and Atlases of La Crosse County, Wisconsin, and the Upper Mississippi River brings together in an online environment content that is located physically at three separate institutions: the La Crosse Public Library, Murphy Library at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Printing at La Crosse Public Library

Find the map you want to print from the UWDCC website. In this example, I am using the 1874 La Crosse County plat map. Select it.

A smaller version appears with three boxes and text “image detail.” Click on image detail – it is a link! Change image to XLarge; make sure the blue lines are around the part you want to print on the left hand navigation area.







Click on “file” on the top browser toolbar. Click on “print preview.”

The little wheel like icon is the page set up. Change paper size to 11 x 17. Change orientation to landscape. Check the box “enable shrink-to-fit.” Click ok – that dialogue box should have disappeared now.

Looking at the print preview toolbar, select “1 Page View” if not already selected and the other box should be set at 60%.

Now scroll to p2 of the 3 pages in print preview and in this case the entire map is shown and will print on the 11 x 17 size. If the map you want is not fitting, you may have to play around with the % in the print preview box. Make sure to simply print the page with the image even though the 1st page will have a shortened form the map title.

Historic Map Works is a paid database available in the library or at home to La Crosse city residents. The best way I have found to find things is not to use “search” but the browse button. Click on the map in the area you’d like to look at. I picked North America, for example. Then you also will get a list on the left side of another map that is an alphabetical list of U. S. states. Canada is on the map but not in the state listing on the left, but you can still click on a province, like Ontario, and a list of the maps they have available will appear.

Since we’re talking about La Crosse County maps, I have selected “Wisconsin” and then a list of map titles by county name and date appear. Most of the more modern Rockford Company plat books can be found here. For La Crosse County are: 1906, 1913, 1945, 1954, 1960, 1969, 1972, 1975, 1978, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, and 2005, plus the 1867, 1873 and 1887 bird’s eye views of the city.

Printing at the La Crosse Public Library

Once you have found something to print in Historic Map Works, don’t use the “print” button on their viewer or you will be sadly disappointed to only get a very little bit of the map even if you increase the size to 11 x 17.



Instead, click “save” on the viewer. The download file dialogue box appears and asks you if you want to continue – click OPEN. Now a jpg image will appear on your screen (mine is defaulting to using the “Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.”)











The easiest thing to do is to use the printer icon at the bottom of the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer toolbar (just below the image I have up on the screen). This opens up the Photo Printing Wizard – click next. Make sure the image you want to print is checked on the “picture selection screen.” Then click next.



























Make sure to change the printing preferences to 11 x 17 and if needed to landscape and color before clicking out of this screen under “printing options.” Takes a bit to print but looks really nice. Lastly, click “finish” to close out the Printing Wizard. All images will have the watermark of HistoricMapWorks.com on them because all the images are copyrighted.

The whole image will print unless you crop it first using the Historic Maps Works crop feature. Then you can highlight the area to crop, scroll down and click the “crop” button. Then you can click “save” and follow the same instructions as above.
You can also save this image and use the Adobe Elements software. Click on the floppy disk icon to save the image – a “copy to” dialogue box opens up so you can navigate to whatever folder you want to save your image in.

It will have a default name and wants to save it as a JPEG. This is fine – then you can open up Adobe Elements or some other photo software to darken or lighten the image as necessary. 


Copy Costs at the La Crosse Public Library

Click here for a printable copy of this Guide (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).