Speaking of forgetting things... how old IS my house?

[dreamshark]

For years I've been telling people that Dream Park was built in 1916, because that's what I remember. But I just looked up my house on Zillow (an interesting exercise, btw) and according to them it was built in 1912. Hmmm. I google my address and find a few other listings for my house in real estate databases. They differ WILDLY in estimated square footage (1985 vs 2995!) but both agree on the build date of 1912. Does anybody know how to look that up in the definitive public record?  

Comments

[mle292.livejournal.com]

According to the intertoobs, a person can find that information at the public library. If it were me, I would ask a librarian what the best way would be.

One suggestion says to look under the lid of your toilet tank (assuming it's original to the house) and check the manufacture date.

Oh, look! Here's the property abstract!

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Strangely enough, the abstract doesn't actually say when the house was built - it's just about transferring the deed to the property back and forth. Which happened remarkably often between 1856 (when the property was platted) and 1920. Somewhere between 1911 and 1916 the mortgage value jumped up to $3,500, which is about right for a substantial house of that period. So I guess that's where I got 1916 from, but the house might well have been built in 1912. That's when the alley went in, according to the abstract.

Man, the people who built this house had an amazingly hard time holding onto it. The property shuttled back and forth between Kelly and Holmes more times than I can count, and went into tax default over and over again. The first few times that happened it eventually ended up back with the Kelly/Holmes syndicate, but eventually they disappear. The Bracket family had it for a while. Wonder if that's the same family that Bracket Park is named for? It's hard to tell who, if anybody, was actually LIVING here during any of this.

And here's a map of south Minneapolis in 1931. Amazing what you'll find tucked away in these old abstracts. Okay, I recognize Lakes Harriet, Calhoun and Diamond - but what's with Rice, Amelia, Mother and Duck Lakes?

[mplsfish.livejournal.com]

Isn't Rice lake still a thing? A little thing.

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

Is it? I sort of thought there was a Rice Lake in St. Paul, but this one is in Mpls. Just north of Lake Amelia. Which might be an older name for L.Hiawatha, judging by the location.

Oh, fine, I'll google. Okay, my map sense was off one click. Rice and Amelia Lakes became Hiawatha and Nokomis, respectively. In that case, what the heck is Mother Lake? It's south of Rice and Amelia and bigger than both of them put together!

Left as an exercise for the reader.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Mother Lake is on the SE corner of Cedar & 62 Crosstown. It's got a large ring of cat tails around it, suggesting it once was bigger.

K.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

Hennepin County Property Tax (http://www16.co.hennepin.mn.us/pins/addrsrch.jsp) website says 1912, too.

They also misspell my name, so the database is not error-free. :)