• Obtaining Plat
Books
• Online Sources
• About Plat
Books
Obtaining Plat Books For a plat book of
your county, contact the County Clerk's Office or area libraries, real estate
offices and map stores. To find plat books and other related information
online consult the sources below. Online
Sources Cloud Cartographics, Inc. sells
plat books for many Wisconsin counties and for counties in Illinois, Michigan,
Minnesota, and Missouri. Farm and Home Publishers sells plat maps and directories for many Wisconsin counties and for counties in much of the Midwest.
Milwaukee Map Service Inc. sells plat books as well as other products for a number of Wisconsin counties.
RedBarn Plat Books & Cartographic Services sells platbooks for a variety of Wisconsin counties, as well as many other locations throughout the Midwest.
Rockford Map Publishers, Inc. sells plat books for
most Wisconsin counties as well as plat books for counties in 17 other
states. For a list of county web sites in Wisconsin use the following
link. These sites will contain contact information for the County Clerk's
Office.
Return to
Top About Plat Books Plat books make
use of the Public Land Survey System(PLSS)
to represent land ownership patterns on a county-by-county basis. They are a
convenient reference for local governments, private realty, surveying
companies, and the general public. Commercial plat books for Wisconsin are
generally prepared by private map publishing companies in conjunction with
county governments. However, recently counties have begun to update the maps
themselves. Plat books are prepared from a variety of source data including
U.S. Census TIGER (digital line) files, historical local government tax parcel
maps, aerial photography, and property descriptions. These records are used to
produce a generalized representation of current land ownership patterns, along
with planimetric features, such as roads, water bodies, and railroads.
Public and private property depicted on these plats is not considered a full or
legally accurate representation of ownership interests or extents, but is a
generalized picture, or snapshot-in-time, of the last deed filed on a property
at the time the County Register of Deeds' records were searched. The maps then
remain static until they are updated several years later. A "last deed"
depiction represents only the last document filed on the property and does not
necessarily reveal or resolve full ownership by title or discrepancies in the
record. Complicating this picture, some commercial firms have made it a
policy to insert "intentional" errors into the plat books to protect their
copyrights, claiming only 85-90% reliability. Thus, while these maps are
sufficient for many general purposes, they are not adequate for detailed use
requiring high accuracy or current information. Most commercial plat books
are produced as hard copy books and do not necessarily have a true "real world"
or integrated mathematical foundation. Today, however, several of these
companies are beginning to produce digital versions which - with proper
construction, registration, integration, and research of record data - will
result in more accurate, current and useful data for many users of land
ownership information. Also, another recent trend in plat book publishing has
been the use of multiple fill colors in the maps. Color is now being used to
differentiate between different types of public lands (national, state, and
county forests, public hunting/fishing grounds, state parks, etc.) as well as
to indicate private lands enrolled in the state's Managed
Forest Program. 113 5th Avenue South
St. Cloud, MN
56301
Phone: (320) 252-1577 or 800-731-8005
Fax: (320) 252-7732
ccimaps.com 524 River Ave North
P.O. Box 305
Belmond, IA 50421-0305
Phone: (641) 444-3508 or (800) 685-7432
Fax: (641) 444-5150
www.farmandhomepublishers.com
959 North Mayfair Road
Milwaukee, WI 53226-3418
Phone: (414) 774-1300 or 800-525-3822
Fax: (414) 774-3181
www.mapservice.com or www.milwaukeemap.com 232 Avenue G
Gwinn, MI 49841
Phone: (906) 346-BARN (2276)
Fax: (906) 346-2301
www.redbarnmaps.com 6581 Revlon Drive
P.O. Box 6126
Belvidere, IL. 61008
Phone: (815) 544-7440 or 800-321-1MAP
Fax:
(815) 544-7441 or 800-446-3530
www.rockfordmap.com www.wisconsin.gov/state/core/wisconsin_counties.html
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