Does anyone know how and where to find out the entire history of a house?

The answers mentioned above are great. If you wanted to go on a true wild goose chase, you could go to the county clerk's office, lookup all the title holders back to when the house was built, and take them down. Then go over to the death certificates department and look up all the names. The death certificates will say the address at which each person died. However, if the home is an older one, and it sounds like it is, trust me ... it's almost a given that at least a few people have died in it.