The Atlas Trade Whole: St. Joseph County Plat Books from 1875 to the GIS Age

Makers named, from the Indiana State Library's county catalogue

The run after the banked first: The first county atlas — the 1875 Illustrated Historical Atlas of St. Joseph County by Higgins, Belden & Co. of Chicago, compiled, drawn and published from personal examinations and surveys — is banked whole in this history. What was missing was the trade that followed it. The Indiana State Library's St. Joseph County maps, atlases and plat books list supplies it, maker by maker, and this article follows that catalogue and no other: where the catalogue ends, this article ends, and says so.

The subscription successors: The catalogue's next county items are a New Map of St. Joseph County issued by the South Bend Tribune and published by Hixson, dated about 1900, with property owners indicated; the Standard Atlas of St. Joseph County, Indiana, including a plat book of the villages, cities and townships of the county, by George A. Ogle & Co., Chicago, 1911; and the plat books of Indiana counties by W. W. Hixson & Co. of Rockford, Illinois, dated about 1920 — six volumes in the set as catalogued, with the catalogue's own caution that plat books bearing the United States highway numbering system were probably published after October 1, 1926, when that system took effect in Indiana, and that the plat books themselves carry no publication dates. The city trade ran beside the county trade: Frederick J. Anderson's Atlas of the Cities of South Bend and Mishawaka, published by G. L. Hughes at South Bend in 1923, is catalogued in the same list, a city atlas and not a county plat book, and is printed here as such.

The mid-century plat-book houses: The catalogue continues with the plat books of Indiana counties by the Sidwell Studio of Lombard, Illinois, dated 1925 to 1941 — the university guide to Indiana's historic plat books likewise names Sidwell Studio and W. W. Hixson & Co. as the creators of the state's historic plat-book run between about 1925 and 1941 — and then, in 1942, an Atlas of St. Joseph County, Indiana by W. W. Hixson and Company of Rockford, Illinois, in the library's Atlas & Plat Book Collection. After the war the imprint changes: the St. Joseph County, Indiana Official Farm Plat Book and Directory by the County Plat & Directory Co. of La Porte, Indiana, dated about 1966; the Triennial Atlas & Plat Book, St. Joseph County, Indiana, by Rockford Map Publishers of Rockford, Illinois, 1970; the St. Joseph County, Indiana 1981 Plat Book by Town & Country Publishing Co. of La Porte, Indiana; and the St. Joseph County, Indiana Official Plat Book, 1990, by Town & Country Publications of La Porte, catalogued under 1989.

The last paper maker, and the catalogue's honest end: The catalogue's final plat-book run belongs to a single La Porte house: Athentic, Inc. — the St. Joseph County, Indiana 2000 Plat Book, fifth edition; the 2003 Plat Book, seventh edition; the 2010 Plat Book, eleventh edition; and the 2014 Plat Book, thirteenth edition, each with county highway map, township maps, city street maps and an index of landowners. The Indiana State Library list for this county, last updated August 29, 2024, contains no later paper plat book. The trade's successor is not a book at all: the Indiana Geographic Information Office's parcel-boundaries layer, released February 1, 2022, is a digital file of parcel boundaries maintained by county agencies and compiled statewide under the Indiana Data Harvest program between the Indiana Geographic Information Council and all Indiana counties — the plat book become a data layer, updated by the counties themselves rather than sold by subscription. That is the atlas trade whole at catalogue strength: Higgins, Belden in 1875; Hixson at the turn of the century; Ogle in 1911; Hixson and Sidwell between the wars; Hixson again in 1942; County Plat & Directory, Rockford Map Publishers and Town & Country in the postwar decades; Athentic to 2014; and the county-maintained GIS parcel layer thereafter.

Sources:

1. Indiana State Library, “St. Joseph County Maps” — the county's maps, atlases and plat books list (in.gov/library), read in full for this section: Higgins, Belden & Co. 1875 (with the 1986 Selby reprint); South Bend Tribune / Hixson new map, about 1900, property owners indicated; George A. Ogle & Co. Standard Atlas, Chicago, 1911; W. W. Hixson & Co. plat books, about 1920, with the catalogue's note on post-1926 highway numbering and undated plat books; Frederick J. Anderson, Atlas of the Cities of South Bend and Mishawaka, G. L. Hughes, 1923; Sidwell Studio plat books, 1925–1941; W. W. Hixson and Company, Atlas of St. Joseph County, 1942; County Plat & Directory Co., official farm plat book and directory, about 1966; Rockford Map Publishers, Triennial Atlas & Plat Book, 1970; Town & Country Publishing Co., 1981 plat book; Town & Country Publications, official plat book 1990, catalogued 1989; Athentic, Inc. plat books of 2000 (5th ed.), 2003 (7th ed.), 2010 (11th ed.) and 2014 (13th ed.); list footer dated August 29, 2024.
2. Indiana University Indianapolis, Historic Indiana State Documents: Map & Atlas Collections guide: the Plat Books of Indiana Counties originally created by Sidwell Studio and W. W. Hixson & Co. between approximately 1925 and 1941, and the Indiana Historic Atlases collection of eighteen atlases dated 1874–1921 including St. Joseph County.
3. Indiana Geographic Information Office, Parcel Boundaries of Indiana 2021 feature service (gisdata.in.gov): parcel boundaries maintained by county agencies, compiled under the Indiana Data Harvest program and released February 1, 2022.
4. Banked record for this section, as supplied in this section's register: the 1875 Higgins, Belden & Co. atlas as the first of the subscription atlases, banked whole.