Interpreting Aerial Photographs (Farms, Privy, Garbage Dump)

SofiyaLitski

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I am trying to answer a couple of questions about old black and white aerial photos.

1) What is this field of white lines I see on my first attachment? On the left house, there is even a field of white dots. Note: that this might be swamp/water related as there is water there now.


2) This photo is from the 1930's. Shouldn't there be a visible path to an outhouse? Can the outhouse or garbage dump be located on the maps?

3) Is it possible to see old dumps on the maps? Could this second image show a dump? It's relatively close to a graveyard (not pictured) but not close to a body of water. A well defined road going to nowhere seems suspicious to me.

Thank you for reading.
 

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That is interesting. I am skeptical as to whether the photo quality is good enough to pick the outhouse out. On a property I have access to, I know right where the old outhouse was but I can not make it out an old aerial photo from 1937. The lines in the field look similar to when a farmer is getting ready to bale hay. The machine puts all the hay in rows like that and then they come back with the baler machine and bale it. I don't know if they did it that way back then, but if I was gonna guess I would say that The dots are a hay field that has already been made into square bales and the bales are still in the field, and the lines are hay that has not been baled yet but has been gathered into rows for future baling. Again, That is just a guess, probably wrong.
 
If you want to find the outhouse you should make a probe out of something and them probe likely places. It seems like that there should be a dump at the dead end of the road on your map. I found a similar situation where a road dead ended in the woods and there was no dump at the end. However there are 3 small dumps off to the side of the road at random places.
 

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Thank you both for your replies.

That is interesting. I am skeptical as to whether the photo quality is good enough to pick the outhouse out. On a property I have access to, I know right where the old outhouse was but I can not make it out an old aerial photo from 1937. The lines in the field look similar to when a farmer is getting ready to bale hay. The machine puts all the hay in rows like that and then they come back with the baler machine and bale it. I don't know if they did it that way back then, but if I was gonna guess I would say that The dots are a hay field that has already been made into square bales and the bales are still in the field, and the lines are hay that has not been baled yet but has been gathered into rows for future baling. Again, That is just a guess, probably wrong.

This seems to be right with the baler machine! Thank you.
I guess I can't rely on aerials then. Just curious, could you see ANY signs of trails from the house to the outhouse on your 1937 aerial?



If you want to find the outhouse you should make a probe out of something and them probe likely places. It seems like that there should be a dump at the dead end of the road on your map. I found a similar situation where a road dead ended in the woods and there was no dump at the end. However there are 3 small dumps off to the side of the road at random places.

I will definitely get a probe. There are hills on these properties so I will check the bottoms. How did you end up finding those dumps on the side of the road? Was it a relatively short road? Did you probe along the entire road?
 
I've had good luck finding bottle dumps on river banks and just over the stone walls marking the property lines. Still a newbie at privies, but actually have 2 probes and multiple permissions lined up to start digging some this year. Hardest part Is locating them, and usually aerial photography helps very little. Try to see if you can find sanborn fire insurance maps for your area, usually they showed where all structures were located. You may have to visit the library or town hall to access those records though. Good luck out there!
 
could you see ANY signs of trails from the house to the outhouse on your 1937 aerial?



I could not see any path leading to an outhouse. I could see the old farm roads, the driveway and stuff like that but definitely not a path, the quality of the photo I was looking at was just not good enough for that.
 
Researching Possible Sites

I've had good luck finding bottle dumps on river banks and just over the stone walls marking the property lines. Still a newbie at privies, but actually have 2 probes and multiple permissions lined up to start digging some this year. Hardest part Is locating them, and usually aerial photography helps very little. Try to see if you can find sanborn fire insurance maps for your area, usually they showed where all structures were located. You may have to visit the library or town hall to access those records though. Good luck out there!

Good suggestion! Another possibility for researching old mapping is the archived USGS topo maps: https://www.usgs.gov/programs/natio...m/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past
 
Good suggestion! Another possibility for researching old mapping is the archived USGS topo maps: https://www.usgs.gov/programs/natio...m/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past

Yep. Houses show as squarish black dots on topo maps. That'll at least get you close to those but sometimes dumps are not always near the houses like you'd think. I have a dump right now that is rather far away from where the house was. Kinda puzzling, but...

Also look for any kind of glass, pottery chards or rusted graniteware etc. or other debris that "doesn't belong". Depressions, I always probe 'em. The probe will usually sink in real easy where the ground has been disturbed.
 
Seems like an extremely odd way to cut and rake hay for baling.

Have you tried an overlay on Google Earth?

ETA: Be interesting to see if the top pic is now a pond. If you look to the left in the pic, there are 2 more similar looking areas.
 
I may have cracked the case.........

The road into the woods leads to the still.

The area with the stripes was their attempt at a football field.

YW
 
Update: I went to the 2nd picture’s end of the road location. I dont have a probe but I looked up and down the hill for trash. Absolutely no trash cans, glass, ceramics, visible garbage, or anything! I dont have a probe but I dug 1-2foot holes randomly around the hillside. Nothing! I think I will move onto another site! My probe comes tomorrow.
 
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