City Directories

I spent most of the day Tuesday at the downtown Central Library. Parking's free at the branches, but $1.25 an hour at the palatial collection across from Dallas City Hall. Why was I at the library? I was on the 7th floor - officially the "Texas/Dallas History and Archives Division", working on the "research phase" of our neighborhood's Architectural Survey. Part of this involves checking the so-called "City Directories".

The Library has paper copies (and microfilm, if you're seeking pre-1976 stuff) of Cole's Criss Cross Directory which let you look up a street at once, which is helpful when you're trying to determine the prior owners of a house. The Polk Criss-Cross Directory is indexed by surname, allowing you to determine someone's occupation (presumably by public sources). I wonder if Karl Rove knows about this? He could simply scan for anyone labelled "terrorist" and send them to Guantanamo Bay for subsequent torture.