Historical Landscape Atlas

Source sheets and evidence-led reference plates

1. 1855
   Lake Survey chart: North End of Lake Michigan

   The earliest held Lake Survey sheet covering the Beaver Island Group; a primary-source chart, not a current navigational product.

2. 1907
   Chart of Beaver Island Group

   A detailed held Coast and Geodetic Survey sheet. Its media page provides a deep-zoom IIIF service suitable for independently reviewable georeferencing.

3. 1849–1854 / present
   South End historical geography

   Modern physical context with exact PLSS government lots, held GLO patent locations, and explicitly uncertain Galilee-era locality evidence.

4. GLO / PLSS
   Land Survey Atlas

   PLSS cells and historic patent-location context for reading land records—never current ownership, title, tax status, or boundaries.

5. 1993 / current reference
   NOAA shoreline source context

   Official CM-9303F vector shoreline against an explicitly different current OSM reference. It is not a measured shoreline-change, property-boundary, or current-condition map.

6. 1901
   Plat of Big Beaver Island

   The Myers plat book’s double-page spread, naming the owner and acreage of essentially every parcel on the island. Deep zoom; a dated compilation of the county’s records, not evidence of title or of current ownership.

7. between 1930 and 1939
   Beaver Island plat sheet, south end

   The W. W. Hixson edition’s southern sheet, around Lake Geneserath. Its publisher printed no date: the repository gives a decade-wide range, and so does the archive.

8. between 1930 and 1939
   Beaver Island plat sheet, north end

   St. James, Peaine and the island’s road network thirty years after the Myers plat. Not georeferenced, and not evidence of current ownership or parcel boundaries.

9. between 1930 and 1939
   Hog, High, Gull, Squaw, Whiskey, Trout and Hat islands

   Seven island plats on one leaf, with High Island — the sheet calls it Little Beaver — held almost entirely by the House of David.

10. between 1930 and 1939
    Garden Island plat sheet

    Names the owner of every parcel and marks four of them only “Indian”, which is the compilers’ label and not a name.

11. between 1930 and 1939
    Charlevoix County index map with the Beaver Islands

    The archipelago drawn at county scale beside the mainland, with the state trunkline routes of the period — and no road at all on the islands.

12. 1965
    Charlevoix County highway map and Boat Company schedule

    Two-page public-domain MSU source work with a Beaver Island inset naming the island’s eight roads and a dated Beaver Island Boat Company schedule; it does not establish current service.