We are the owners of the Greeley-Howard-Norlin-Smith, 170 y. o. Land Surveying & Map Making company, established in Chicago in 1854, still owned and managed by the members of the same family - we are the 5th generation.
Our longevity is based upon the knowledge amongst our clients that they are dealing with the honest business that provides the highest quality product [in this case - survey plats & maps] and good advice, & never missed a deadline. THANK YOU!
OUR MISSION
is to raise money to save our unique historical archive for future generations.
For this purpose, we are offering high quality copies for sale to general public, researchers & surveyors. We strongly believe that the atlases, maps, plats, advertisement drawings, posters, etc., from our archive, all have a very significant value to historians, demographers, urban sociologists, genealogists, cartographers, archivists, even, meteorologists, and anyone, who studies urban development/re-development, design, community development, etc.
WHAT WE OFFER
SURVEYING & MAP MAKING
GREELEY-HOWARD-NORLIN & SMITH [GHNS] IS THE OLDEST LAND SURVEYING & MAP MAKING BUSINESS IN THE CHICAGO METROPOLITAN AREA.
It was established in 1854, when Samuel Greeley officially began the Chicago practice, initially under the name of Samuel Greeley, Surveyor.
Over the years business (company), at times, was large and small, but the love of the land surveying,
exceptional quality of work, and professionalism of the owners stayed intact. Over 169+ years in business, GHNS’ surveyors walked and measured, we believe, every city block in Chicago and many many properties in suburbs, including NW Indiana.
EXPLORE OUR HISTORICAL SHOP
GHNS FAMILY BUSINESS ACCUMULATED EXTENSIVE BUSINESS ARCHIVES
that include approximately 500,000 plats of surveys; over 10,000 copies of plats of recorded subdivisions; 190 atlases; and thousands of pages of other supporting documents/maps. We strongly believe that our business archives/records of the Chicagoland Metropolitan area are the most complete in the industry. We even have some survey plats of parts of Chicagoland from before the Great Chicago Fire.
WE ARE OFFERING OUR ENTIRE UNIQUE ARCHIVE TO ANY PERSON OR ORGANIZATION THAT WILL PRESERVE IT AND MAKE IT AVAILABLE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
WE ARE ACTIVELY SEEKING A "NEW GOOD HOME" FOR OUR ARCHIVE
We are spending considerable time scanning and organizing our old maps & plats [In the last 5 years, we scanned, so far, 70,000 items, which is just a small part of the whole archive]
We own a huge archive of hundreds of thousands of handcrafted historical maps & plats of the Chicago Metropolitan area and beyond, going back to early 1800s.
We are looking for a person or organization that will take over preservation of this archive & finish scanning all items to make them available to the public.
PLEASE HELP TO SAVE OUR UNIQUE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE!
Sincerely, Donald & Tanya Smith