Edward Hathaway, Manager of the Hennepin County Library's Special Collections department, selected this 1940 Atlas of the City of Minneapolis from their collection in MDL. Flip through the book below:

Atlas of the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1940

The 1940 Atlas was the last atlas of the city of Minneapolis following the detail and size of a string of earlier atlases dating back 1885. The city was largely built out by then and modern residents can still recognize familiar buildings and street patterns, as well as the footprint of their own houses. But it is also a window into a lost world. The houses and streets later plowed under by freeways are all still there. The remnants of the Oak Lake Park neighborhood can still be seen, as well the original layout of neighborhoods massively redeveloped in the post-WWII period, such as the North Loop and Cedar-Riverside. A Work Project Administration (WPA) project, the atlas is wonderfully detailed and sure to provide many hours of delight and fascination to the map lover and Minneapolitan alike.

The atlas is significant because it includes highly detailed renderings of Minneapolis, pre-freeway, when it was mostly built out and near its peak population.

I chose this book because of the amazing detail of the maps and the high quality of the printing. It's an amazing record of the city.

The Hennepin County Library's Special Collections department houses thousands of local maps and plats. This atlas is one part of that large collection.

The Hennepin County Library is comprised of 41 branches located throughout Minnesota's most populous county. Together the system's collections total more than five million items in 40 languages. The James K. Hosmer Special Collections Library at the Central Library in downtown Minneapolis houses a vast collection of Minneapolis and Hennepin County history materials, a selection of which the library has contributed to the Minnesota Digital Library. Highlights of the digital collections include the 19th century diary of a Minneapolis teenager, three plat books, dozens of maps, three menus from the city's historic hotels, and hundreds of photographs that document the city's late 19th and early 20th century history.

Browse the Hennepin County Library collection in MDL.

See more favorites using the page links below.