Archival Series
Residential and commercial structure inspection cards
Wednesday, January 1, 1902
Friday, December 31, 2010
circa 1902 - 2010
A2018-009
AS/18
The Bureau of Buildings was established to provide enforcement of building, plumbing, electrical, and other structure-related codes through the examination of plans, issuance of permits, and inspection of structures. In 1914 the bureau consisted of plumbing, electrical, building, permit, and records divisions. The regulation of building construction was initiated primarily to prevent fire and maintain street clearances. Before the creation of the Bureau of Buildings, building permits of were issued by City Council beginning in 1864 with requests for Council permission to use streets for building purposes. An 1872 ordinance required that a permit be issued by the street commissioner for the construction or removal of buildings. Early permits were also issued by the Fire Marshal. The Office of the Inspector of Plumbing and Drainage opened in 1892 to regulate and inspect plumbing and drainage. The office issued plumbing licenses and required the filing of plans and specifications for new buildings. The position of Building Inspector also existed prior to the formation of the Buildings Bureau. The Bureau of Buildings was, at one point, part of the Department of Public Works. In 1999, the Bureau was combined with a a section of the Bureau of Planning creating the Office of Planning and Development Review. The name of this office was changed in 2002 to the Bureau of Development Services. With the closure of Portland's Commission form of government in 2025, this Bureau was renamed Portland Permitting & Development. The residential and commercial building inspection card collection is comprised of 162 boxes of 4 x 6 inch note cards created for building inspections completed by the City of Portland between 1902 and approximately 2010. Inspections were required for completed work on structures that were issued permits by the Bureau of Buildings, known later the Office of Planning and Development Review (1999) and the Bureau of Development Services (2002). Information recorded on inspection cards varies based upon the year of the inspection, type of structure or inspection, and the information the inspector chose to record. Information that may be recorded includes: The date of the inspection; building location (address or cross streets); building owner; contractor; the type of alteration or repair; the cost of the alteration or repair; violations noted, remarks made by the inspector, and the signature of the inspector. Alternate spellings, name changes, and areas of interest have been noted in the descriptions of individual permits and sets of permits in the same area. Residential and commercial building inspection cards are arranged alphabetically by street name. Addresses recorded on the cards vary between exact addresses (house and building numbers) and intersections. Cards in this collection created before 1933 retain the original street names and numbers assigned prior to Portland's street renaming and renumbering project. The earliest set of inspection cards (created between 1902 and 1950) were originally arranged by permit number and were located using an index arranged by street. While the actual inspection cards have been rearranged this index still contains information that may be of use, including the building owner, work completed, and comments logged by the inspector. This index is arranged alphabetically by street name and by street number. Inspection cards created between 1950 and 2010 have also been arranged by geographic location (North, Northeast, Northwest, South, Southeast, Southwest), alphabetically by street name, and by street number. A small subset of inspection cards created between 1993-1994 were not incorporated into this arrangement by the creating agency.
34.28 cubic feet (101 file card boxes)
The residential and commercial building inspection cards were transferred to the Portland City Archives by the Bureau of Development Services in 2014 and 2018.
City records stored at the Portland Archives & Records Center (PARC) are available for public review, with few exceptions. The records identified by state law as exempt from disclosure cannot be accessed at PARC; requestors will be referred to the Public Records Request Portal.
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