Calling the Cotton Press: Fire Insurance Maps of a Mississippi Delta Town (opens in new tab)

Fire insurance maps reveal a lot about the industrial history of cities and towns of any size. Sanborn fire insurance maps of a particular Mississippi Delta town in 1925 reveal an economy based around the harvesting, refining, and transportation of cotton. These maps also hint at the life and work of the Black community in the Delta that made this economy possible, as well as some of the many achievements of that town’s community over the 20th century.