A tool that I use a lot in my research is the free maps you can access over the WWW from Topozone: http://www.topozone.com/ Let me walk you through how you can find the creeks you mention using these tools. Topozone support queries on the names of major places, but not on the names of features such as streams. Fortunately, there is another system called the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) query system: http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnis/web_query.gnis_web_query_form In this case, GNIS did not have "Falling Creek" but it did have "North Fork" (I searched for a feature of type stream in Bedford County, TN named "North Fork"): North Fork Creek 353459N 0863833W Farmington topo quad I took the location data (which I knew from past experience was in degrees, minutes and seconds -- and I also remembered that longitude is actually negative in the US (GNIS "overlooks" this important fact), and asked Topozone to give me a map ( under "Get a map" in the left frame) given a location in "Deg/min/sec" ). I filled in this data: Latitude: 35 degrees, 34 minutes, 59 seconds Longitude: -86 degrees, 38 minutes, 33 seconds and got a map centered on North Fork with this URL: http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?lat=35.58305555555556&lon=-86.64250000000001 Not seeing a "Falling Creek" on this map, I expanded it to a "Large" map: http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=16&n=3937569&e=532390&size=l On the large map you see "Fall Creek" just to the E of "North Fork Creek". So I assume this is the location and the modern name for Falling Creek is Fall Creek. Note that you can follow some links in GNIS and get to a map on Terraserver of the same area: http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.asp?S=14&T=2&lat=35.5831&lon=-8 6.6425 but these Terraserver maps are much less flexible and harder to use that the Topozone maps. Topozone lets you choose both the size and scale of the map that you get.