STEP 5
Finding early or original plans, drawings and photos of your house.

Finding copies of the original plans, old drawing or views or your house is not easy to do, and you will be very lucky to uncover anything at all. But you can also be pleasantly surprised

The best place to start is with former owners. They would be more likely to have photos of your house from 10, 20, or 30 years. There are however, a few public collections where you can look for photos and plans.

If your house was built after 1955, the plan is on microfilm along with the permit at the Department of Buildings. Only the owner of the hosue or his/her proxy can obtain plans from the Department of Buildings.

The AIC and the CHS both have small collections of plans for older structures, that are usually indexed by architect (since these are found in departments other than the library, please ask for information.)

Older photographs of individual houses are generally not available, but streetscape views of some blocks can be found. Visit the Prints and Photographs Collection of CHS to find these.

The Chicago Historical Society has a set of photographic postcards showing most houses in Morgan Park (but not Beverly) in 1909. The Ridge Historical Society has photocopies of them.