1905 Map of Depew

About this map

Depew and Lancaster serve as the industrial anchors of this Erie County landscape, where a dense network of competing railroads defines the local economy and settlement patterns. The map documents the turn-of-the-century infrastructure of the New York Central and Hudson River RR, the Lehigh Valley RR, and the Delaware Lackawanna and Western RR as they converge on these growing rail hubs. This survey provides a remarkable look at the transition from the concentrated industrial villages of the north to the more dispersed agricultural communities and creek-side settlements of the south.