City Directory Search

Search the OCR full text of city directories on the Internet Archive across many years at once, without downloading the scans. Each result links to its page scan.

1 · Directories

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2 · Search terms

Search tips
  • Put words in quotes to require them to appear together, e.g. "N Meridian" 1234. Case, punctuation and line breaks are ignored, so "N Meridian" also matches N. Meridian.
  • The street directory section (usually in the back) is arranged by street and house number. To look up an address, search house number + street, e.g. 1234 N Meridian.
  • Common Polk abbreviations: av avenue, h householder, r resides, wid widow, (c) "colored," used in older directories to designate Black residents.
  • OCR often confuses 0/O and 1/l, and multi-column layouts can run lines together. If nothing comes up, try a shorter term or an alternate spelling.
  • Page links include ?q=, so the viewer highlights your term. If the page is off by one, turn a page.

3 · Results

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