As Baton Rouge continues to look at ways to reshape its infrastructure to fit a complete streets model, it might be helpful to look back at how the city grew to where it is today. The US Geological Survey has historical maps of the city dating back to 1908, when areas like Southdowns and along Highland and Perkins roads were little more than swamplands and fields.
Recently, the USGS made those maps available online in a tool that overlays available historic maps on what’s essentially a navigable Google Maps-like platform. You can go to a location, pick a historic map, and scroll around, increasing or decreasing the opacity of the older map to see how the street grids have changed.
These maps might provide some context while we anticipate some major developments in the works that are poised to change how we view certain neighborhoods and thoroughfares across the city.