How to Research the History of an Old Building

Every old commercial block, warehouse, church, school, and theater has a paper trail — usually a surprisingly long one. Businesses needed permits, paid taxes, bought insurance, and advertised their grand openings, and all of that generated records that survive in courthouses, libraries, and federal archives. This guide walks through how to research the history of an old building, step by step, using sources that are almost entirely free. (Researching a private house instead? Start with our companion guide to researching your home's history — many of the same sources apply, but houses have a few tricks of their own.)

1. Read the Building Itself: Cornerstones, Date Stones, and Physical Clues

Before you open a single archive, walk around the building. Many commercial and public buildings announce their own history. Look for a cornerstone (often at a front corner near the foundation, common on churches, lodges, banks, and civic buildings) or a date stone set into the parapet or above the entrance — frequently paired with the original owner's name or the building's original name, like "ODD FELLOWS HALL 1897" or "SMITH BLOCK 1904."

Other physical clues worth photographing: ghost signs (faded painted advertising on brick walls), bricked-in doorways and windows that hint at earlier configurations, mismatched brick showing additions, iron storefront columns with the foundry's name cast into them, and pressed-tin ceilings or terrazzo entry floors with a business name worked in. Cornerstones sometimes conceal time capsules, and lodge buildings often carry two dates — the calendar year and a fraternal calendar year (Masonic cornerstones, for example, may add 4000 to the year, so "A.L. 5897" means 1897).

One caution: a date stone tells you when that facade or addition was built, which is not always when the building began. Verify it against the records below.

2. Date It by Architectural Style

Style won't give you an exact year, but it brackets the possibilities before you go digging. A few broad ranges for American commercial and public buildings:

• Greek Revival (roughly 1825–1860): columns, heavy cornices, temple fronts on banks and courthouses.
• Italianate (1845–1885): tall arched windows, bracketed cornices — the classic Main Street storefront look.
• Second Empire (1855–1885): mansard roofs, common on post-Civil War civic buildings.
• Richardsonian Romanesque (1880s–1890s): massive rough-cut stone, round arches; courthouses, libraries, train stations.
• Beaux-Arts and Classical Revival (1890s–1930): grand columns and symmetry on banks, post offices, and city halls.
• Early commercial / Chicago style (1890s–1920s): large plate-glass windows, brick piers, restrained ornament.
• Art Deco and Streamline Moderne (1925–1945): geometric ornament, glass block, curved corners; theaters, diners, WPA-era public buildings.
• Mid-century modern (1945–1970): flat roofs, curtain walls, folded-plate canopies on banks and motels.

Remember that small towns often lagged big-city fashions by a decade, and Main Street facades were frequently "modernized" — a 1970s metal slipcover may hide an 1880s Italianate front underneath. Style dates the skin; records date the building.

3. Pull Building Permits and City Engineering Records

Most American cities began requiring building permits sometime between the 1880s and the 1920s (earlier in big cities). The original permit is often the single best document you will find: it typically names the owner, the architect or builder, the estimated cost, the intended use, and the exact date. Later permits document additions, fire repairs, storefront remodels, and changes of use — a timeline of the building's whole life.

Start with the city's building department (sometimes called development services or code enforcement) and ask how far back their permit records go and whether older permits were transferred to the city clerk, the city engineering department, or a municipal archive. Engineering departments also hold plat maps, street-widening files, sewer and water connection records (a sewer hookup date is a great proxy for construction date), and sometimes original architectural drawings for public buildings. Many cities have digitized recent decades; older permits usually live on microfilm or index cards, and staff can often look them up by address while you wait.

4. Trace Ownership Through Deeds and Tax Records

The county recorder of deeds holds the chain of title — every sale of the property, often back to the original land patent. Work backward from the current owner using the grantor/grantee indexes. Deeds tell you who owned the land and when, and a sharp jump in sale price between two deeds often marks the moment a building went up on a vacant lot.

The county assessor's tax records are even more direct: when a lot's assessed value suddenly rises — say, from $400 in 1891 to $6,500 in 1892 — a building almost certainly appeared that year. Many assessors also keep historic property record cards with sketches, construction dates, and sometimes mid-century inspection photographs of the building. These cards are public records; ask for the oldest card on file for your parcel.

5. Follow the Footprint Through Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps

From the 1860s to the mid-20th century, the Sanborn Map Company mapped more than 12,000 American cities and towns in extraordinary detail for fire-insurance underwriters. Each sheet shows every building's footprint, height, construction material, and use — "hardware," "opera house," "livery," "auto sales." Because most towns were re-mapped every five to fifteen years, laying successive editions side by side shows exactly when your building appeared, when wings were added, and how its use changed.

The Library of Congress Sanborn collection offers thousands of digitized sheets free online, and state libraries and universities hold regional sets (many libraries also provide free access to the ProQuest Digital Sanborn database with a library card). For a full walkthrough of reading the color codes and symbols, see our guide to using Sanborn fire insurance maps.

6. Search Newspapers for the Construction Announcement

Commercial and public buildings were news. Local papers routinely reported the letting of construction contracts, cornerstone-laying ceremonies, grand openings, fires, and remodelings — often naming the architect, contractor, and cost. A story about a new opera house or bank block can hand you in one paragraph what would take days to assemble from records.

Search Chronicling America, the Library of Congress's free archive of digitized historical newspapers, using the building's original name, the owner's name, and the street name (historical addresses were often rendered loosely, so "the Miller Block" may work better than "112 Main St."). Many public libraries offer cardholders free remote access to Newspapers.com or NewspaperArchive, and state historical societies frequently host their own free state-specific newspaper databases. Try date-limited searches in the year or two suggested by your tax-record jump.

7. Check HABS/HAER Documentation and Architectural Surveys

If your building is architecturally or historically notable, professionals may already have researched it for you. The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), founded in 1933, and its sibling the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) for industrial sites and bridges, have documented tens of thousands of American structures with measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written histories. All of it is free to view and download in the HABS/HAER/HALS collection at the Library of Congress. Search by building name, city, or county.

Separately, most states and many cities have conducted architectural or historic resource surveys — block-by-block inventories that record each building's estimated date, style, and history. Survey forms sit in State Historic Preservation Office files and city planning departments, and increasingly in online state databases. Even a one-page survey form can give you a construction date and architect that took a professional a day to verify.

8. Mine National Register Nomination Files

National Register of Historic Places nomination files are research gold. A nomination is a formal, footnoted history of a property — construction date, architect, owners, occupants, alterations, and historical context — prepared to professional standards and reviewed by state and federal historians. If your building is listed, or sits inside a listed historic district, the nomination has already done much of your work; district nominations often include an inventory describing every contributing building on the street.

Search the National Park Service's free database at NPGallery by name, city, or county, where most nomination forms and photographs are available as PDFs; the program's home page is at nps.gov/subjects/nationalregister. Even if your specific building isn't listed, read the nominations for neighboring properties — their context sections describe the development of your street and cite the local sources their authors used. And if your research convinces you the building deserves listing, see our guide to the National Register nomination process.

9. Contact the Local Preservation Office and Historical Society

Finally, talk to the people who do this for a living — or for love. Many cities have a historic preservation office or a volunteer preservation commission inside the planning department; they maintain survey files, designation reports, and photo archives, and they know which records survived and where they went. Every state has a State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) that holds survey and National Register files statewide (find yours through the National Conference of SHPOs).

Local historical societies are just as valuable: address files, photograph collections, oral histories, and volunteers who remember the building's tenants firsthand. Find the society covering your building in our directory of historical societies by state. If your research pays off, consider commemorating it — our article on historical building markers explains the options for plaques and signage.

Putting It All Together

• Work from both ends. Physical clues and style give you a rough date; permits, tax jumps, and newspapers pin it down. Agreement between two independent sources is your standard of proof.
• Track names, not just addresses. Commercial buildings were known by owners' names ("the Grand Block," "the Foster Building") long before anyone used street numbers, and many streets were renamed or renumbered in the early 1900s.
• Document as you go. Photograph every record and note the repository, volume, and page. Six months from now you will not remember which deed book held that 1892 transfer.
• Expect layers. Most old commercial buildings are composites — an 1880s core, a 1920s storefront, a 1960s slipcover. Your job is to date each layer, not to find a single "the" date.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I find out when an old building was built?

Check the building for a cornerstone or date stone, then confirm with records: the original building permit at the city, a sudden jump in county assessed value, the building's first appearance on a Sanborn fire-insurance map, and a construction announcement in the local newspaper. Two agreeing sources make the date reliable.

Are building permits public records?

Yes, in nearly all U.S. jurisdictions building permits are public records. Contact the city building department with the address; older permits may be on microfilm at the city clerk's office, engineering department, or municipal archive, and staff can usually search by address.

How can I find the architect of an old building?

The original building permit and the newspaper construction announcement are the two records most likely to name the architect. Also check HABS documentation at the Library of Congress, National Register nomination files at NPGallery, and state architectural survey forms, all of which record architects when known.

What if the building isn't famous or listed anywhere?

Most buildings aren't — and the core sources still work. Permits, deeds, tax records, Sanborn maps, and newspapers document ordinary commercial buildings just as thoroughly as landmarks. Historic district nominations for nearby properties can also supply context about your street's development even when your building itself was never surveyed.