When County Records Have No Administrative Function
After the role of assessing property was delegated to the Harris County Appraisal District, the Office of the Assessor and Collector of Taxes had no use for the records it maintained on property values in Harris County. These records were created by any entity in the county that set a tax rate (municipalities, school districts, etc.). All the records were destroyed except those from Harris County that were saved from destruction due to the diligence of a local researcher and the county records manager. Extending from the 1920s to the 1980s and including photographs taken in the 1960s and 1970s, these historically valuable records are available to the public in the Harris County Archives and are used extensively by property owners, historical researchers, genealogists, attorneys and neighborhood groups to protect their rights and document the past.