Brooklyn Historical Society          "Landowner / Plat MAPS" Brooklyn Township, Henepin County, State of Minnesota;  Brooklyn Center & Brooklyn Park

Our collection of landowner / plat maps range from as early as 1860 to the 1870's, 1880's, 1890's and into the 1900's.  After about 1914 they are harder to find as development reached the point where subdivisions made numerous lots from what had been 20, 40, 80, 160 or more acre parcels.  At the Minnesota Historical Society they have a large set of plat maps for the area from around the 196's but landowner names gave way to survey markers and other details. If you find a parcel on the older maps, you then have to try to determine where that location may be in modern times.  You can find links on our site to modern-day maps of both Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center that show Township SECTION line corners that are then placed over modern day roads and development.  You can possibly very precisely locate a family farm area of the late 1800's in comparison to modern day homes, industries and commercial properties.  In our office we have these maps available to view.  There are also links on our LINKS page. Depending on what web browser you're using, our "jpg" or "pdf" files can typically be enlarged by either clicking the image or using other controls.  Adobe Reader is needed for the "pdf" files.

This map from 1914 is also available by a link on our SITE INDEX page where you may be able to enlarge it to read the names of particular landowners.

For both Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center, we have modern road maps on which the original township SECTIONS can be shown.  What this means is that if we locate a family farm in late 1800's to early 1900's we can likely roughly estimate the location of that site in terms of modern development.  For example, the NW 1/3 of section 12 is the same today that it was more than a century ago except for the fact that modern development has made it harder to determine the approximate location.  Either city hall can provide copies of these maps but we've taken the extra step of linking the corner notations to make it easy to quickly locate a section that's of interest.

The USGS (United States Geological Survey) made some great TOPOGRAPHICAL maps in the early 1900's that show the area in terms of soil types and topographical features.  The maps show ideal soil for farming... and potatoes!

We have many links to vintage MAPS on our site pages starting at our home page!

Updated August 2, 2010

Do you have any vintage PLAT BOOKS or MAPS of the area?  We'd welcome your donation to our archives or the opportunity to make photocopies!  Thanks!