City Directories can be excellent sources of information about Akron and surrounding areas. These directories list the people living in the Akron area as well as local businesses. In many cases, the entry for a person provides spouse and employment information. Entries for businesses frequently provide the names of the corporate officers. Many city directories also contain a section listing the residents by address instead of name. This information is very useful when researching the history of your house. The directories were usually published annually.
Each directory has been scanned and the digital images subjected to an optical character recognition (OCR) process to make each searchable. Because the directories in some cases are very old, the text has faded, and while it is still readable to the human eye, the OCR process might not be as effective. In order to find the entry you are interested in, you may have to browse the volume.
The directories listed below are in Adobe’s Portable Document Format. A free PDF reader is available from Adobe. The file size of each directory is listed and large files may take several minutes to load even with a fast connection. If you have trouble opening the files, you may want to download them. You can right-click on the link and select "Save link as..." to download.
More current directories as well as the Haines Akron City and Suburban Criss-Cross Directories from 1943 to the present and Akron area telephone directories from 1914 to the present (early years are incomplete) are also available in Special Collections.