Driving around Christmas shopping made us realize how much Lafayette has grown and developed in the last few years. In the new year, we will officially have a Superior Grill, and just a few weeks ago we welcomed Chimes to the city.

Dave and Busters and Top Golf also made their debut this month, what's next?

Have you ever noticed how much Lafayette's landscape has transformed over the years? Take, for instance, the image above—a glimpse of the Sonic restaurant on Kaliste Saloom, just across from Louisiana Hot Stuff. Surprisingly, a whole new shopping center now occupies that very spot. I stumbled upon this revelation while exploring Google Maps and utilizing its Street View feature.

Google Street View made its debut in 2007, initially capturing images on the streets of San Francisco. Now the Google Street View cars, have covered vast distances.

Consequently, you can now access street view images from numerous streets in major cities, as well as many streets in suburban and smaller towns. This technology has become a remarkable tool for tracking the evolution of urban and rural landscapes over time.

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Google Maps
Google Maps
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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.

John Falcon
John Falcon
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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.

Google Maps
Google Maps
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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!

Google Maps
Google Maps
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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).

Google Maps
Google Maps
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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.

Google Maps
Google Maps
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Click on any one of the dots and it will bring you to the next photo that was taken from that location and, 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.

70 Google Maps Images That Show How Much Lafayette Has Changed

Seven Times Lafayette Has Been Featured on Jeopardy

If Lafayette Streets Could Talk This Is What They'd Say To You

Guess Louisiana Cities from Satellite Photos

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