Aerial Photographs

One of the favorite resources for viewing Connecticut’s historic landscape is aerial photography. They have no equal as a factual record of the landscape at a given moment in time. The Connecticut State Library Archives has in-print photographs available for public review dating from the 1930s to 1995.

At least two statewide coverages and a few partial coverages are available on-line. The University of Connecticut’s MAGIC website offers photomosaics of the 1934 and 1991 flights. These are mosaic composites which allow you to move over, or pan, across the surface of the state without interruption. The seven-decades-old 1934 photography is especially fascinating in that it provides a window into the past when the state was dominated by farms and woodlands.

In addition, Microsoft’s Terraserver provides photography from the early 1990s that covers the entire nation.