The Junior League of Wilmington began a survey of Wilmington’s historic buildings in 1974. The league extracted data from courthouse records and the Sanford Insurance maps and wrote on-site descriptions. This research was the basis of "Old Wilmington Guidebook," which the Junior League published in 1978.

The papers are filed in 249 folders, each folder labeled with the street name and number and, if appropriate, the name of the building or item. Folders contain some or all of the following: survey forms, deed abstracts, sketches, letters, excerpts from books, magazines and newspapers, and miscellaneous brochures.