Authors have a lot of information they need to create when developing a new story, often with just their imagination. We name characters and give them physical features and a cultural heritage. Then we invent problems for them to overcome—both to achieve their original goal and to make the relationship they discovered along the way have a happy ending. For many stories, we need to do research to learn about a new profession or hobby so the characters are presented like living breathing people.
To avoid being confined by the physical restraints of a particular town or city, I often make up locations so I can put the mountains or beach where I want it without having a reader point out a possible error, because the place I chose happens to be that person’s hometown. So, what’s an author to do?
One method is embarking on personal research. Traveling to all the places I write about would cost more money than I earn in royalties. For one series, I was already flying from California to Texas to attend a writers’ retreat and do a drive-by visual check on the house we still own there. I tacked on an extra day and walked the streets of a nearby small town, taking notes about creeks, old buildings, a cemetery, businesses, etc. All that information was used in my Dorado, Texas and Sugar and Spice Bakery series.
BUT several years ago, I discovered Sanborn Insurance Maps that are saved in the Library of Congress. These maps came into existence when more and more businesses started insuring their properties. Not as detailed as a surveyor’s plot drawing say of the lot or acreage your house is on, these maps do depict all the physical structures apparent when the surveyor visited the site. Often a city map from the 1890s will have five or six pages. These are great because an author can learn the street names, see where underground pipes exist, and determine where the biggest concentration of businesses was. I’ve discovered water and electrical plants present earlier than I originally imagined.
Here are two maps of a town called Manitou Springs, Colorado. I renamed it Spur Springs and used it as the setting for three stories, the most recent being The Bride Who Tends Sheep. I learned the town was built on both sides of a creek that ran through it. I also am amazed that not all structures are squared off or perpendicular to the road they face. So different from how our neighborhoods look today. Here's a rundown of what the colors mean: pink represents a brick or tile building; yellow is for wood construction; blue for stone, concrete, or cinder block.
To find a map for your city, put Sanborn Insurance Maps into the search bar for your browser. Once on the site, enter the name and state for the desired location and then explore. I’d love to hear what you discover.
BLURB:
Fall 1876, Colorado
Arrosa Cristobal tends a flock of forty sheep on government land near the city of Cherry Creek. She stays as close to town as she can to check in with her laundress mother who she helps support until her death a month earlier. A ransacking of her caravan while she visited town makes Arrosa feel vulnerable. She sets out on the thirty-five mile trip to Spur Springs to join her estranged brother, Jakombe. Maybe they can combine their herds.
Cameron McPherson, a Scottish rancher, is the head of the Spur Springs cattleman group. He’s struggled to keep the members in check from attempting to push out the Cristobal sheep ranch on the outskirts of town. But when he sees a new unfamiliar flock drawing close, he has to confront this interloper and hopefully steer her and her flock away from town before another rancher sees her. But the minute he meets her and hears where she is headed, he hesitates, not wanting to be the one who informs her of Jakome’s death. His protective instincts rise toward this woman who appears to be all alone in the world.
Can these two strong individuals on the opposite sides of grazing rights find common ground?
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