Tax Records are a good source for researching property history. At this time, archived Tax Records are not available online. The Washington County Archives houses the following records:

Combined Personal Property & Real Estate Tax Records (1836-1867)

Between 1836-1867, Personal Property & Real Estate Tax Records were combined in one Tax Record Book. For the most part, these books are arranged alphabetically by Taxpayer's Names. After taxes were collected, each county routinely turned the tax book over to the Arkansas State Auditor in Little Rock. Surviving books from this time period were microfilmed by the Arkansas History Commission in Little Rock. The following years are missing: 1839, 1850, 1857-1858, 1860, 1862-1865. (For reasons unknown to us, Washington County kept its 1866 Tax Record Book.)

Personal Property Tax Records (1868- 2001)

Personal Property Tax Records are very valuable documents. Unlike Real Estate Tax Records, which only list owners of real estate, Personal Property Tax Records make an attempt to list all heads of households of the county, whether or not they owned real estate.

The arrangement of Personal Property Tax Records changed over the years. To the best of our knowledge, books were compiled in the following manner:

The following Personal Property Tax Records have been missing for several years: 1876, 1980 (part), 1981-1986

The following Personal Property Tax Records were badly damaged in a flood in 1996 and had to be discarded after microfilming: 1881, 1894, 1946-1948

Real Estate Tax Records (1868-2003)

After the 1948 tax season, Washington County discontinued using large tax record books and developed in its place the unit tax ledger system. This consists of a series of ledger cards, each containing 10 to 12 years of tax payment information for one unique parcel of property. Like the books that preceded them, these cards are arranged by legal description through 1973. Beginning with 1974, the ledger cards are arranged by parcel number.

The following Real Estate Tax Records have been missing for several years: 1874, 1879, 1891

The following Real Estate Tax Records were badly damaged in a flood in 1996 and had to be discarded after microfilming: 1900, 1905, 1910, 1915B, 1920A-B, 1925A, 1930A-B, 1931A, 1932B, 1935A, 1940A, 1945A, 1946-1948