Historical Aerial Photography (Submitted by Rob Pate)

Historical aerial photography has a great many potential uses, and more would be uncovered as it becomes increasingly available. In addition to the original agricultural uses, aerial photography can provide a historical record for studying such things as land use change, landform change, demographic change, and habitat assessment. It can be used for community planning, environmental enforcement, industrial projects, transportation planning, creating base maps, and basic enjoyment.

Field offices are busy. Everyone is doing more with less staff. Of course, the farm bill contracts are priority; trying to complete contracts by deadline, it is tough to find enough hours in the day to service our customers, and meet the field office goals.

In the middle of all this, someone walks in looking for old archived photos. A lot of times these are out-of-state consultants working on environmental assessments for a new cell tower site, or looking for historical information on past land use. With new offices, and many office consolidations, many of these archived photos are collecting dust in a big pile in the back broom closet. Photo indexes are lost or have been thrown out. Most of the 1990 flights have no date or flight line on the front of the photo, and it is hard to even tell which county you are in, much less find a particular site in a county.

These archived aerial photos are very important historical documents, especially the older photos, the 1938 to 1945 flights. These photos deserve organization and should be available and assessable to the public.

The following may be printed and put with your archived aerial photography. If the public wants further info on aerial photos, they can contact the USDA-FSA APFO in Salt Lake City. The Aerial Photography Field Office (APFO) is the primary source of aerial imagery for the United States Department of Agriculture. Over 10,000,000 images are held there. The imagery dates begin with 1955 to the present.

The collection of aerial photography housed in the historical film library at the Aerial Photography Field Office (APFO) is reputed to be one of the largest in the country. Its initial purpose was to maintain a photographic record of the nation’s farmlands for use in administering farm programs. In addition to serving the Farm Service Agency (FSA) and its predecessors, APFO has contracted imagery acquisition for the Forest Service (FS), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), and others.

More information may be found at:
http://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/vault_holdings2.pdf

Or contact:
Customer Service Section
USDA Farm Service Agency
Aerial Photography Field Office
2222 West 2300 South
Salt Lake City, UT 84119-2020
Tel: 801-975-3503
Fax: 801-975-3532
Email: apfo.sales@slc.usda.gov
Web site: http://www.apfo.usda.gov