Eye in the Sky Before Google Earth
Before Google Earth came along and provided satellite photos to allow us to be geographic voyeurs, the best way to get a birds eye view of your home or town was from the aerial photos provided by state or federal geological surveys. I recently stumbled upon a web site that provides historical air photos of my home state, Pennsylvania, dating back as far as 1937. Penn Pilot, a collaboration between Penn State University and the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, has started to place scanned photos of old aerial surveys at this web site for online viewing. Currently you can view photos taken from 1937-42, and from 1967-71. They are working on adding photos from 1946-52, and from 1956-61. It's pretty cool to go back and see what your town or neighborhood looked like before your house was built, or before highways and man-made lakes changed the look of a township or county. I'm not sure if any other states are doing this, but I think it would be a neat idea if they did. So, if you live in PA and want to see how the Keystone state has changed over 70 years (or whether the land your half-million house sits on was once a garbage dump or swamp), check out Penn Pilot.
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