White Mountains historical atlas
White Mountains
Through Time
Watch federal forestland assemble, forests return, working railroads recede, roads reshape valleys, and mountain communities grow—without pretending every year has equal evidence.
Interactive history map
Compare what the records actually show
Opening historical release…
What you’re comparing
Forest return · 1947–48 to 2025
Nnorth-up locked
Preparing the historical workbench
The map will open on a north-up comparison of the earliest regionwide forest-type evidence and the current endpoint.
Interactive map unavailable
This browser could not start WebGL. The timeline, story cards and source record remain usable below.
Open the source chronology
Nothing usable to show here
We do not yet have a usable map for one of these years.
Earlier1913
Later2025
muted modern map for location only
earlier map
later map
best estimate—not confirmed
edge of the mapped area
source confirms it was not there
no usable map or record
Available map years
Choose from years we can actually show
An empty dot means we know a source exists, but we have not yet turned it into a usable map.
ready to view and source checked
source found; map not ready
best estimate or example only
no usable local map
one map per year begins in 1985
Loading the release manifest and sample evidence…
The mapped area will appear when a year is selected.
Guided map stories
Three ways into a changing landscape
Each story opens at a useful place and explains what the two sides can—and cannot—be compared for.
Loading the infrastructure story…
Loading the community story…
Map of data-source time
The kind of map changes over time
A year may mean when a map was surveyed, when a photo was taken, when land changed hands, or the year covered by a modern dataset. We keep those meanings separate.
Mapped context
State maps, post-road maps, railroad surveys, county maps, Hurd’s atlas and Sanborn town-center sheets.
- Generalized outside detailed insets
- Edition date is not always observation date
- Absence on a map is not proof of absence
The National Forest takes shape
These records show land the Forest Service says it acquired in each year. They tell an ownership story, not what the trees looked like that year.
Important: the outline is the Forest Service’s present-day digital shape for that land. The 1913 deed may have described its boundary differently.
- Year the Forest Service acquired it and the former owner
- Acreage listed in the record
- Ownership history, not a forest-cover map
Photographic evidence
Patchy archival aerial frames begin early; systematic statewide orthophotos become the detailed comparison backbone after 1992/98.
- Coverage footprints must always be visible
- Exposure date stays separate from scan date
- UNH/SPNHF terms require item-level review
Repeatable measurement
Landsat begins the region-wide satellite record; annual canopy and land-cover products begin in 1985.
- Early MSS evidence is coarse
- Annual does not mean error-free
- We keep the exact product version so the map can be checked later
Early maps · county atlases · Sanborn · USGS editions
WMNF parcel acquisitions
Archival aerials · statewide orthophotos
Landsat · annual canopy and land cover
How we built it
Every line should tell you where it came from
A crisp-looking boundary can still be only an estimate. We keep the source, date, mapped area and our own work separate so the map can be honest about what is known.
One source can have several dates
We separately record when a photo was taken, when a map was surveyed, when land changed hands, and when a file was released.
We show where each source ends
A town map or aerial photo never quietly pretends to cover the whole state.
Estimates look like estimates
Our best estimates stay striped or dashed and say “not confirmed.” You can hide them at any time.
Published maps do not change silently
Every release has an ID. If we improve a map, we publish a new version so an old shared link can still be checked.