Plat Maps and Family Stories

1921 Plat map for the town of Iola. John Milton Overman's  property is in the lower right quarter of the map, While editing a Wiki article on Allen County Kansas this last week I came across a goldmine: plat maps for Allen County circa 1921. As a former cartographer, I have a love for maps, and as a student of genealogy, I love them for what they can reveal about the people who lived in the places they represent. This particular map revealed the exact place my great grandfather had farmed. It also illustrated a feature about the farm that verified a story my father had told about an uncle. I won't go into the story here because it will be told in a podcast I will be adding to the blog in a few days, but an important part of the story involves a railroad line.

The 1906 plat map for Iola and southwestern regions.

 J.M. Overman is on this map as well.

I had been to Iola once, about twenty years ago, but didn't have any information on where the Overman family had lived. My uncle, Ray Overman, didn't really remember much about the town. His cousin who lived there part of the year was in Colorado and unavailable to see me. My father, Bob, had passed away two years before. At least I was able to develop a mental map of the area.

With the discovery of the plat map, a lot of things I remember being told made sense, and one of those things was the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad line that ran through John Milton Overman's farm.

Modern satellite image of John Milton's farm. The area in the 

lower right is where the original house was located.

With further research I found an older map from 1906. The railroad went through this map of the property as well. A website detailing the history of AT&SF rail company can be found here. It appears that the rail line was probably laid in the eighteen seventies, about twenty years before John Milton bought his farm.

The farm and the railroad right of way are still visible on modern satellite maps of the area. The Overman family no longer owns the property and the rail line has become a formal hiking trail, but the property is bounded on three sides by roads and is still identifiable. The next time I go through Iola, I'll drive by the property. If the owner is amenable, I may even walk out to where the old railroad line was, where the Overmans used to hitch a ride on a steam train into Iola.

(1921 and 1906 Plat maps from Kansasmemory.org)
(Satellite image from Google Maps)