Dating is hard: A look at how Portage County determines building age

Earlier this summer, The Portager reported that Ravenna’s police/fire complex was built in 1901.

That was news to Portage County Historical Society Vice President and Curator Kevin Gray, who lost no time setting the record straight on social media.

Armed with old newspaper articles, Gray said the complex was built in 1922.

Cue The Portager reaching out again to the Portage County Auditor’s office, which had supplied the original date. Turns out that when the true age of a building is murky, the office just enters a placeholder date of 1901.

The staff member who had handled The Portager’s initial call neglected to mention that critical bit of information, but county Auditor Matt Kelly says they will now.

Defending his office’s data, Kelly said, “The auditor’s office is basically the source of truth, meaning we have a date in our database under a parcel that says when that building was built. I’m going to almost always say that’s going to be the date that the building was built on that piece of property.”

He acknowledged that in Ravenna, his office relies on “decades and decades of what people have put in the database over time. We may be off a year or two on some parcels here and there, only because that’s the information that was put in back in 19-whatever it was. What’s in our database is the best information we have based on what people who have worked here in the past have put in the system.”

Dating’s not easy. The county auditor’s and treasurer’s electronic records only go back 7 to 10 years. Older paper records are kept in a county storage building on Infirmary Road, but historical records are stored at The University of Akron’s Archives and Special Collections area. 

Kelly reached out to Gray, who “provided what I will call a compelling argument, or a compelling case with data backing it up, that no, it’s not 1901, your default,” Kelly said. “Here’s evidence that those buildings were built in 1922.”

That evidence?

• A March 25, 1920, Ravenna Republican notice that Ravenna was issuing bonds to acquire land and finance construction of a fire station and city hall.
• A Jan. 25, 1922, Ravenna Republican article noting that the next council meeting would be held in the new city hall/fire station, as it was nearing completion.
• A June 6, 1972, article indicating that Ravenna’s City Council renamed the old building on Spruce Street, which had been city hall for 50 years.

Convinced, Kelly directed his staff to correct the official record. The auditor’s office is trying to tweak its software to read “0000” or “1234” when a building’s age is listed as 1901 and is working with the county’s software vendor to determine how many parcels have that placeholder date.

In Ravenna, “I think there’s about 1% of our commercial and residential parcels that are going to have that 1901 date,” Kelly said. “So out of 160,000 parcels, maybe 1,400, 1,500 have that 1901.”

Kelly has also directed his staff to tell people requesting records that the 1901 date may not be accurate. Then again, it may be. After all, buildings were erected in 1901.

Anyone wishing to know when their house was truly built might start with the county recorder’s office, but would only learn the property’s sale records, not when structures were actually built. That takes old tax maps, which would indicate when taxes on a given property significantly increased.

That jump likely indicates when a building was built and, with luck, a note on the document may specify whether the structure was a barn or house.

Gray said many dates on the county auditor’s database are wrong—some by as much as a century—but finding accurate dates for every Portage County building would be an impossible task.

Incidentally, Reed Memorial Library, the building where Gray is employed as a reference librarian, is also listed in the county auditor’s database as having been built in 1901. The true date, Gray says, is 1924.

Then there’s a house on Lincoln Avenue. The auditor’s website lists it as having been built in 1890, but its new owner, a historical preservationist, could tell by the architecture that it was older.

“He went to the recorder’s office and that helped narrow down a date, but not precisely,” Gray said. “From the recorder, he was able to learn that a man named George Brown purchased the property in 1870. I then went through newspaper articles and found out Brown planned to build a house the following year, so the home dates to 1871.”

Gray advises people to start with the recorder’s office and to email him at kgray@reedlibrary.org. He also urges people to contact the Portage County Historical Society, which accesses historic maps, directories, newspaper articles and other sources to help verify dates.

Information in hand, it might be possible to convince the county auditor’s office to replace its 1901 date. Kelly said people could present a record of when a building permit was issued or proof of when a building was built. Get creative: does the county health department have records of when a septic or well permit was pulled?

Legal documentation indicating when a building was built or when ground was broken would work, as would “other compelling evidence,” similar to what Gray provided, Kelly said. Newspaper articles. Relevant pictures.

But Kelly isn’t trying to deal with an influx of people demanding records.

“There’s no benefit to knowing when your house was built other than curiosity and the joy of research,” he said.