Saturday, December 18, 2010

Creating Communities: Digitizing Denver's Historic Neighborhoods

Link to December 14 Denver Post column by Tina Griego, "Library searches for Denver's hidden history".

Excerpt: About three years ago, the Denver Public Library's Western history/genealogy section won a grant to begin telling the histories of city neighborhoods online. It started with Auraria, Barnum, Capitol Hill, Five Points, Park Hill, University Park and West Colfax.

The task required archivist Jamie Seemiller, the program administrator, and her staff to sort through tens of thousands of records — photos, handwritten letters, brochures, maps, directories, anything that might illuminate the stories. More than 86,000
records now make up the Creating Communities website at creatingcommunities .denverlibrary.org.

The site, beautifully done, recently went live. A few kinks remain, but you can read about these particular neighborhoods and research larger databases of photos, householder directories, maps and tax assessor records from 1860 to 1950
.

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