Fire insurance maps drew every building, what it was made of and what it was used for, so insurers could price the risk of fire. Pick a year, then a sheet.
1894Sheet 1 of 1
Edition
Sheets
BrickWoodStone
Sanborn Map Company, via the Library of Congress. Editions published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
The story so far
Bliss, in brief
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Bliss yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Bliss is the largest hamlet and a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Eagle, Wyoming County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census, Bliss had a population of 496. The community is in southern Wyoming County, in the north and central part of the town of Eagle. It is bordered to the north by the town of Wethersfield. Bliss is in the valley of Wiscoy Creek where it is joined by its North Branch. Wiscoy Creek flows east and south to the Genesee River, a tributary of Lake Ontario. New York State Route 39 passes through the south side of Bliss, following the Wiscoy Creek valley. The highway leads east 6 miles (10 km) to Pike and west 10 miles (16 km) to Arcade. State Route 362 r…
Its first post office opened in 1881. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 527 to 496 (-6%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
By decade
No old photos in the archives yet
Weddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs here.
Be the first to add onePhotograph a print flat, in daylight, no flash.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From U.S. Geological Survey historical maps and Sanborn fire insurance maps (Library of Congress). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
