Historic City Directories

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Discover the first year your home appears in the annual City Directory to estimate the year it was built and find the original owner or builder! Every year, the City of Dallas Directory was published with every address included. This was a manual and arduous task. By looking at the City of Dallas Directories, the story of Dallas neighborhoods and Munger Place Historic District unfolds. Within the pages you witness the number of homes on each of the five Munger Place Historic District streets grow each year, starting from 1905.

Listed below are the annual City of Dallas Directory by Street and Year (1905-1918), scanned from microfilm from the Central Library downtown. Here are instructions for how to use these documents:

1. Expand on your Street Name (e.g. Junius). Click on the 1918 Directory document to find your home address. (Helpful hint: Street name is found towards the top of the document, intersections are in bold, homeowner name is next to address number)

2. Click on Directory document years in descending order until you no longer find your home. (Helpful historic fact: If your home was built before 1911, 1911 is the year that street numbers changed and you’ll see the key in the Directory- new and old numbers side by side)

3. The earliest year that your home is found in the City Directory means your home was likely built the year prior (or potentially same year). The name listed is the original homeowner or developer. (E.g. if your home was found in the 1915 directory but not 1914 then your home was likely built in 1914).

   We hope to host field trips to the Library in May for those interested in finding more information about their original homeowner and the original building permit application! Please look for the monthly newsletter for more details.