This application allows users to view historical imagery from Huntsville's archives. These images are scans of printed aerial photos. We currently have nearly 5000 images available for viewing and will continue to add more as they are digitized.
Instructions
Search for an address or use the tool to place a point on the map. Then click the button to view a list of all historic aerial images for that location. is the input location and is the center of each historic image.
Please Note
1. Temporal Coverage
Currently imagery from the following years is available within this application: 1937, 1940, 1942, 1949, 1950, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1978, 1980, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004.
2. Spatial Coverage
Many of these datasets only cover small portions of the county. For example 1937 only covers "downtown" Huntsville. On the other hand, 1968, 1971, 1987, 1989, 1991 and 2000 datasets cover most of the county. However over the last 85 years some photos have gone missing so even in years with good coverage like 1971 there are gaps in the data. We have good coverage of Madison County in general but we have very limited coverage of Limestone County.
3. Image Resolution
These images are scans of small, very old, printed images. While they were scanned at 400 DPI they simply do not compare to modern high resolution, digital images. Furthermore these images had to be compressed to reduce their size and make them available for viewing on the web. With these images it will be difficult to view the details of individual buildings. But if you have patience to really study an image a wealth of information is available.
4. Improvement
If you have suggestions for improving this webpage or know the location of additional aerial images for the Huntsville area please let us know!
Just send an email to
Nick Haney, he loves to talk about historic imagery.
