Some Colorado Deeds Predate the Civil War. Now, They’re Going Digital.

Ever wonder what deed recorders do with those fees they charge? In Colorado, fees from nine years of deed recordings have funded a 21-million-dollar project to make all records into digital, searchable documents.

Arapahoe became a county in 1861 — before Colorado gained statehood. Now, it has reached the final stages of digitizing county deeds that residents have filed since those early days.

What prompted this, you ask?

First Came the Law

In 2002, Colorado started requiring that county records, including deeds and liens, be filed electronically. This would have multiple benefits. It would preserve records from the ravages of time, floods, fire, humidity, and everyday handling. It would also empower researchers and the public to easily examine county records. Under the state law, counties could charge an extra $1 for recording to cover the expenses of the new technology.

Fast-forward 14 years, to 2016. Colorado enacted Senate Bill 115, which formed the state’s Electronic Recording Technology Board. The board would be supported by recording fees from each Colorado county. Deed recorders have tacked on an extra $2 per filing ever since.

The fees do add up. To date, $21 million in grants (and counting) have been extended to 57 counties to create electronic records. It’s money well spent, according to the Council of State Archivists. Well-managed electronic records, the Council explains, “help safeguard government accountability and cultural heritage.”

The work involves records kept in many types of media. Paper documents bound in books. Photostat pages. Rolls of microfilm. All are remade as digital files. Then the records become available on the internet, with backup files kept at various data centers.

Michelle Batey, who heads up the board, says Colorado will likely be the first U.S. state to digitize all of its records. At the moment, Arapahoe is one of the last counties getting the work done.

Then Came the Scanning…

Colorado law prohibits real estate and vital records from leaving a county clerk’s custody. Arapahoe County would have to bring the specialists in. A company named US Imaging sent employees to Littleton, the seat of Arapahoe County, in 2021. For days on end, the workers carefully scanned millions of old images and document pages, one at a time. A round-the-clock security service kept watch.

Examining the scans, checking them for legibility, and fixing them where needed would take time. Lots of time. Finally, in October 2025, the task was finished.

Most of Arapahoe County’s $1.2 million digitization project was covered by the state’s grant. Under $300K had to come from the county. So, if not for the state’s Electronic Recording Technology Board, Arapahoe County could never have accomplished this feat.

County officials celebrated their digital progress on Electronic Records Day, created in 2021 by the Council of State Archivists. At the event, Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder Joan Lopez announced that the county’s records “will be safe from damage and preserved for future generations.”

…And Now Comes the Indexing

Now, Arapahoe County is working on indexing all these millions of electronic records so they become searchable.

This phase includes some final cleaning up and completeness checks. Until indexing is finished, the staff won’t be sure the new system is complete. The county is considering a new application for state funding. Last year, availability of the Colorado Electronic Recording Technology Board grant was renewed for a five-year period.

County leaders are excited to see the whole project nearing completion. So are the researchers, who’ll be welcome to explore the database at no charge. They will be free to pull records and get copies with watermarks. For a minor fee, they will be able to get certified copies of records. 

And visitors to the county website will soon be looking at historic documents, reports the Colorado Sun — ”like the one from 1867, when President Andrew Johnson issued a land warrant granting 160 acres” to the heirs of a soldier in the War of 1812.

Before and After

The public database is a major upgrade for Arapahoe County. Before this years-long undertaking, people who wanted to examine original documents would need to set up an appointment in advance. Staff members would attend to them, getting any old books or microfilms that the visitors might be looking for. It was important to watch over the books and filings, to be sure they were handled with care.

So the staffers would wait patiently. The researchers would sift through books, sometimes examining them one page at a time. Juan Guzman, the county’s deputy director of records, describes moments when researchers returned from lunch, and “their hands may have oils on them or different things.”

Along with being digitized, the old, oil-stained books were carefully cleaned and re-bound in protective cases. 

Counties in a number of states are now restoring old record books at the same time as having them digitized.

To Be Continued: Denver’s Having Its Own Digital Drama

Denver got started in 2013. Using its own funds, Denver digitized millions of documents. The oldest were legal papers filed way back in 1859.

The project included many kinds of records, including property maps, deeds and liens, and foreclosure records. The city is working through hundreds of boxes of physical records.

As reported by The Colorado Sun, Denver can’t complete the work and bring these records online until the city’s budget allows for it. Rural counties have the smallest populations of residents paying fees, so they get first dibs on state grant money.

In 2019, Denver received a $200K state grant. But digitizing some 10 million Denver records will take more than a million dollars, according to the Denver Clerk and Recorder’s office.

Markets Ebb and Flow. Through It All, Deed Holders Create History

Most people have an idea that the county deed recorders do just as their titles say. They record deeds. What some people may not know is that they’re also custodians of local history dating back to the founding of states — in some cases, before their states even joined the union.

Each deed that’s transferred and recorded becomes part of that valuable history. Including yours and mine.

The county records rooms are busy in hot markets, quiet when markets cool. When sales are brisk, real estate investors and title researchers need to check the maps for boundaries. Traffic’s been generally slow this year, with deed holders tending to stay put.

Future market trends will prompt new activity, with more people examining records. That work will now be easier. And far fewer unwashed fingers will be flipping through the brittle pages of old, yellowed books.