The full collection of Spokane County Assessor real property record cards is held at the Eastern Region Branch of the Washington State Archives in Cheney, WA. The city of Cheney is complete, and the Archives is working on various sections of the city of Spokane. Scanning and indexing the historical Spokane County property record cards is a multi-year project. Because of this practice, some of the cards have been imaged multiple times, each time revealing the next flap or the original set of assessed values. When the Assessed Value portion of the cards were filled, the Assessor’s Office glued on flaps of paper, allowing further values to be recorded. Ownership information is not recorded on the cards, and dates or values of sale were only rarely recorded. A “footprint” sketch detailing the lots’ boundaries, the measurements of the perimeter of any buildings and how the buildings were situated on the lot are recorded on the back of the typical card. The assessed value of the property, the year of construction of any buildings, and details such as the number of bathrooms and the type of siding used are all recorded on the face of the cards. Photographs only exist for buildings which were standing at the time of the last update to the cards. Each card covers a slightly different date range, but there are no real gaps in the records. By 2000, the Assessor’s office had transitioned to a software system for recording assessed value, and there are no hard-copy records more recent than this collection in existence. These “goldenrod” cards are also part of the collection. Some of the cards were replaced in the late 1990s with computer generated cards containing less information. The cards were compiled and updated from approximately 1940 through 2000, with some irregular updates thereafter.
When cards were worn or damaged, the most recent information was copied to a new card. The records were updated each time an appraisal was completed, typically on a four to six year cycle, and older information was sometimes erased.
Real Property Record Cards were created by the Spokane County Assessor’s Office to capture the assessed valuation of land and buildings for the purpose of real property taxation.
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