70 Google Maps Images That Show Tremendous Change in Lafayette, Louisiana
Here are 70 images from Google Maps that show just how much the landscape of Lafayette has changed over the years.
See the photo above? That's the Sonic on Kaliste Saloom, across from Louisiana Hot Stuff. Yes, there is a whole new shopping center now, sitting on top of that field. I found this on Google Maps, using the Street View feature.
I found out today that you can change the date on Google Maps to see photos that were taken years ago by the Google Street View car. Google Street View came out in 2007, taking photos on the streets of San Francisco. Within a year, that Google Street View car started racking up miles (I know there's more than one, silly), and now you can get street view images from most streets in major cities, and many of the streets in the 'burbs and smaller towns.
If you'd like to do your own exploring on Google Maps for your town, it's easy to compare the most recent photos available with the earliest photo available. Just go to Google Maps and center the map on where you want to explore. Then, in the bottom right corner, find the Google Street Dude (that dude is yellow), and drag him onto the map.
As you hold him over the map, you should see (at least some of) the streets turn blue. If the street turns blue, it means that the Google Street View car has mapped that road.
Drop the Google Street Dude onto the blue street where you want to explore and the most recent Google Street image should appear. I dropped it on Jefferson Street in Lafayette and BOOM!!: just like that, I was at Tsunami!
To find an earlier photo from that same location, click on the Street View button in the top left box on the Google Maps screen (circled in red, below).
When that menu drops down, it will give you a timeline of all photos available for that location, listed by the year the photo was taken. This particular location on Jefferson Street was photographed several times between 2008 and 2019.
Click on any one of the dots and it will bring you to the next photo that was taken from that location, as you can see just above the dots in the photo above, it will give the month and year the photo was shot.
I hope you find something interesting to explore and share with us anything cool you find!
In the meantime, here are 70 images from Google Maps that show just how much Lafayette has changed.