How do I go about finding the owner

[quakerboy]

of a business that may not have existed past the early 70's?

[peacefreak]

1. What about contacting the Town Hall

or Chamber of Commerce? Might be worth a try. Or the local library.

[quakerboy]

4. I got the name from city hall

off of some plans, but their last contact was in 71

[flvegan]

2. Most states have a Dept of State, Division of Corporations

First, you need to know what state in which the company incorporated (Delaware is the most popular of choice). Normally, they then register in each individual state to do business and have a contact as the Registered Agent.

If this is just a local company, the DoS is still your best bet. They should keep the public records back to the dawn of time...or at least from when they started keeping track.

[quakerboy]

3. Its an architecture firm

He signed off on a building that I really like, and I want to find out if there are other buildings in the area that he did that might be in a similar style, but still on the market rather than purchased out from under me. I went to city hall, thats where i saw the plans and got his name and business, but they were done in 71. The phone number is defunct, and a google search is netting me no results.

[Gormy Cuss]

6. See if the AIA can help.

If the architect is still registered, maybe they will be willing to give you new contact info.
http://www.aia.org/index.htm

[Brother Buzz]

5. Did you do a people search? n/t

[ConcernedCanuk]

7. I'm not sure how it works down there, but if you have the address for the property the business

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We can do a "title" search for the owner of the property - goes right back to the date the property was first surveyed/deeded.

We do this at what we call the Land Registry Office (Ontario, Canada)

I've done this with a few properties, and found one 100 year old farm I was living on was bought for $450 in 1901, 25 bucks down, and 50 bucks a year . .

wow