Denver Building History Tutorial

The Denver Public Library’s Building and Neighborhood History Collection in the Western History and Genealogy Department contains a wealth of resources for researching the history of Denver buildings, neighborhoods, and architectural styles. Included are early building permits, real estate and fire insurance atlases, assessor records, directories and photographs. 

Many of these resources can be found in our Denver Building History Resources guide and in our Digital Collections.

The best place to begin is with the building itself. You may find a copy of the original building permit or blueprints or other clues that will help you get started. A neighbor may have early photographs of the area or information about previous owners.

    

Other useful Library collections include neighborhood histories, walking tours, architectural guides, maps, directories and other published research resources as well as indexes of newspaper articles and clipping files on Denver neighborhoods, buildings, streets, etc.

For more extensive research, we invite you to visit our Building and Neighborhood History area in the Western History and Genealogy Department on the 5th floor of the Central Library. 

Bibliography

These lists are all selections of the extensive collection of books on building and neighborhood history available at the Library. Be sure to search for the name of your neighborhood to find other sources.