Have you ever wondered what your vintage house looked like in its younger years?  If your house was built prior to 1972, and particularly before 1940, you may be able to find out!

Between 1936 and 1940, the federal depression-era WPA funded a comprehensive survey of properties in King County. Hundreds of workers gathered information and took photographs of nearly every structure in the county. Between 1940 and 1972, the King County Assessors Office took over 1 million more photos. This entire collection photos is housed at the Washington State Archives Puget Sound branch, located in Bellevue.

You will need your home’s tax number or legal description when you call the archives at 425-564-3942. Whether you want to restore your house to its original appearance, or are just curious how your abode may have changed over the last 70+ years, this wonderful resource is what you need.

And for a short history on this unusual project, visit historylink.org.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 11:05 am and is filed under Fun stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.