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Books
What little has been published about Richmond houses usually centers on the most prominent examples of architecture in town. Searching for information about your home will probably require sifting through small bits of information from various sources. To begin your search, check the following resources in the Reference Services Department to see if any of them mention your house. Any books with an asterisk (*) by the call number will be shelved in the Genealogy Collection.
RC 720.9 H67
City Planning Associates, Inc. Historic Richmond: Toward Architectural Preservation. 1970.
Since this is a survey, it consists mainly of generalizations about the whole of the Old Richmond and Starr Historic Districts, but there are a few individual houses listed.
RC 728.37 C95r
Crowe, Mary E. Reeveston Place Historic District. 2002.
*
This is an application for the National Register for historic places.
RC 728.36
C95
Crowe, Mary E. Sampling of Italianate Houses in Richmond, Indiana. 1999.
*
Descriptions and photographs of about thirty-five Italianate houses in Richmond.
RC 728.37 C95
Crowe, Mary E. Rediscovering Reeveston Place. 2000.
*This is a history of the Reeveston subdivision, with descriptions of many of its houses .
R * 977.263
H32
Hartig, James P. and Gertrude L. Ward. Gaar Houses. 1991.
*This includes twenty large houses built by the Gaar family of Richmond.
R 724.23 H32
Hartig, James P. Greek Revival Houses, 1834-1859. 1995.
*This discusses about twenty prime examples of Greek Revival Homes in Wayne County.
R 977.263
R34
A Rehabilitation Guide for the Near North Neighborhood, Richmond, Indiana. 1994
*This doesn't describe individual houses, but it contains a great deal of information about the Near North Neighborhood and about styles of houses.
RC 977.263 R45
A Revitalization Plan for the Starr Historic District, Richmond, Indiana. 1991.
*This contains actual descriptions of individual houses in the Starr Historic District, and comments on their condition as of 1991.
R * 977.263
T65
Tomlan, Mary Raddant and Michael A. Tomlan. Richmond, Indiana: Its Physical Development and Aesthetic Heritage to 1920. 2003.
*This is a scholarly and detailed architectural history of Richmond. It includes some individual houses, but its great value is in giving histories of whole neighborhoods and subdivisions. It is worthwhile to read the history of your subdivision. It will give you an idea of when your house was built, and perhaps the name of builders working in the area.
R * 977.263 W35i
Wayne County Interim Report (Excluding Richmond). Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory. 1983.
*
This is a list of historic structures in Wayne County outside of Richmond. It has early 1980s photographs of some houses. There is very minimal description of each house.
R * 977.263
W35i2
Wayne County: Interim Report. Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory. 2001.
*
An updated historic building survey of Wayne County historic sites, including Richmond. It has It has a very minimal description of each house and photographs of exceptional examples of various styles.
Pamphlets
Look in the Richmond/Wayne County Historic Pamphlet Files under the headings:
- Houses
- Housing Developments
- Historic Buildings
- Historic Buildings-National Register Nominations
- Reeveston
- Starr Historic District
This file will contain such information as newspaper articles, articles on preservation and National Historic Register applications.
Photographs
For old photographs of area homes check the following sources:
R 977.263
D13
Dalbey, Edwin F. Pictorial History of the City of Richmond, Indiana.
*There were four editions of this worked published from 1896 to 1906 and two facsimile reprints published in 1991 and 1993.
R 977.263
T94
Turner, Joyce. Reminiscences of Richmond, Indiana. 1991
*The final section of this work has a few houses - mainly various Gaar family homes.
Marcia Corrigan O'Neal's Newspaper Indexes
Marcia O'Neal compiled a series of indexes for nineteenth century local newspapers. Each bound volume covers a single local newspaper or a set of newspapers for a specific time period. These indexes are much more detailed than MRL'S Online Index to Local Newspapers. These indexes list every mention of every name. All of these indexes are shelved together in the Reference Services Department at 977.263 O58.
- Richmond, Indiana Newspapers, 1822-1861.
- An Index of Wayne County & Vicinity Persons, Firms, Organizations, & Miscellaneous Categories Extracted from the Richmond Evening Item , 1882.
- An Index of Wayne County & Vicinity Persons, Firms, Organizations, & Miscellaneous Categories Extracted from the Richmond Evening Item , 1883.
- An Index of Wayne County & Vicinity Persons, Firms, Organizations, & Miscellaneous Categories Extracted from the Richmond Evening Item , 1884.
- An Index of Wayne County & Vicinity Persons, Firms, Organizations, & Miscellaneous Categories Extracted from the Richmond Evening Item , 1885.
- An Index of Wayne County & Vicinity Persons, Firms, Organizations, & Miscellaneous Categories Extracted from the Richmond Evening Item , 1886.
- An Index to Highlights in the Richmond, Indiana Evening Item 1887-1894.
- An Index to the Richmond, Indiana Palladium , 1862-1871.
- An Index to the Richmond, Indiana Palladium , 1872-1875.
- An Index to the Richmond, Indiana Telegram , 1876.
- An Index to the Richmond, Indiana Telegram , 1877.
- An Index to the Richmond, Indiana Telegram , 1878 .
- An Index to the Richmond, Indiana Telegram , 1879.
- A n Index to the Richmond, Indiana Telegram , 1880.
- An Index to the Richmond, Indiana Telegram , 1881.
- "The Centreville Series," 1848-1865.
City Directories
Morrisson-Reeves has a complete back run of city directories beginning with the year 1857. Some of the early directories also covered all of Wayne County. These directories were produced by several publishers and vary in format and coverage. For many years they were published every other year instead of annually.
If you know the name of the former owners of your house, you can look them up in the city directories to find what years they lived there, their occupations, and their spouses' names.
Beginning with the 1929-1930 directory a reverse, or crisscross, address section was added. This means that one can look up an address and see who lived there and who lived near by.
Before 1929, one must have the person's name to use the city directory. In order to get the names of people who lived near each other on a street you need to go to the U.S. Federal Census which comes out every ten years. We have the Wayne County Census on microfilm or on Ancestry.com for in-house computer use. Ask at the Reference Desk.
The Richmond city directories for the years 1857 through 1916 were microfilmed as part of the County Records of Indiana Microfilm Project (CRIMP). If you need to copy pages from a city directory in this time span, we ask that you do so from the CRIMP microfilm roll, not the paper copy. The paper copies are becoming very fragile.
The city directories, crimp microfilm rolls, and federal census rolls are all kept in the Reference Services Department. They do not check out and are not available for interlibrary loan. We have several microfilm readers and reader/printers that will enable one to read and copy from the microfilm reels.
(The abbreviation "r" means "renter," an "h" means "homeowner," a "ws" means "West side of the Whitewater River," and "wr" means "West Richmond" in these directories.)
Census
Every ten years the federal census taker went from house to house along every street and made a list of every person living there. This is a list of who lives in houses or apartments including renters, boarders and relatives. Other family members who are staying elsewhere the day of the census were not included with that household. The census gives occupations, ages and state or country of birth as well as other information. Before 1929, when the city directories began to have cross directories, the census is the only way to see lists of people who lived near each other on a street. We have the census on microfilm for Wayne and surrounding counties. We have in-house access to Ancestry.com to look at census for the rest of the country. Ask at the Reference Desk.
County Histories
R * 977.263 W35
Wayne County, Indiana Index of Names of Persons and of Firms. 3 Volumes. 1982.
*This is an alphabetical list of all the names that appear in twenty of the most useful sources about Wayne County history. Once you know the names of previous owners of your house, you can look them up in these volumes. Each entry lists the name of the person or firm, gives a code letter for the book in which it appears, the volume number, and the page number. In the front of each volume there is a key to these letter codes and the call numbers of the work the library owns are indicated.
Genealogy Materials
Once you know the names of previous owners, you might want to check other sources in the library's Genealogy Collection. A bibliographic guide to this collection is available online.
Architectural Style
Architectural style and material evidence are crucial in compiling a history of a house. You will want to know how your house originally looked, to what purpose were its rooms and outlying structures put, and how it has been altered and adapted over time. If an abstract, or other sorts of documentary evidence, do not exist or have glaring gaps, then the architectural and material evidence may be all you have to work with. In the circulating collection, the library has many architectural works. They often are lavishly illustrated and will help you date your house by its style. To find such works, look in the subject bank of the library card catalog under the following Library of Congress headings:
ARCHITECTURE, DOMESTIC
DWELLINGS - UNITED STATES
HISTORIC BUILDINGS - UNITED STATES
The following works are particularly recommended:
728.6 D75
Downing, A. J. The Architecture of Country Houses. 1969.
728.028 H84
Howard, Hugh. How Old Is This House?: A Skeleton Key to Identifying Three Centuries of American Houses. 1989
720.973 J54
Jennings, Jan and Herbert Gottfried. American Vernacular Interior Architecture, 1870-1940. 1988.
917.3 M4655
McAlester, Virginia and Lee McAlester. A Field Guide to American Houses. 1984.
720.973 R56
Rifkind, Carole. A Field Guide to American Architecture. Rev. Ed. 1998.
728.37 S61
Sinclair, Peg B. Victorious Victorians: A Guide to the Major Styles. 1985.
728.37 S84
Stevenson, Katherine Cole and H. Ward Jandi. Houses by Mail: A Guide to Houses from Sears, Roebuck and Company. 1986.
728.37 T94
Turn-of-the-Century Houses, Cottages, and Villas. 1983.
728 V94
Van Horst, M. V. Country and Suburban Homes of the Prairie School Period. 1982.
728.3 W18
Walker, Lester. American Shelter: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the American Home. 1981.
To view a selection of architectural styles represented in Wayne County houses, see our subject guide on House Styles of Wayne County.
Magazines
The Old-House Journal can be found shelved with the rest of the library's periodicals. There is a special index for past issues of this magazine on the Index Tables in the Reference Services Department. The Old-House Journal is devoted to restoration and renovation techniques for older homes. Examples of articles include: Romanesque Revival Architecture, repair of window sashes, how to use epoxy to repair exterior wood, and information about clapboard. In addition, the advertisements in this magazine feature companies that sell renovation and restoration supplies and fixtures.
Other magazines of particular interest are:
Preservation
Preservation Forum
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