Records Management in 1996 -- Before the Archives

Written by Billie McNamara in July, 1996: Within the past few years, all the earliest records were moved to a vault in the basement of the county's courthouse for safekeeping. Unfortunately, the vault flooded. When that happened, the county saved what appeared salvageable and threw away the rest. The salvaged records were moved to an abandoned school building for temporary storage -- that has turned into long-term storage because the county can not afford to refurbish the vault, clean and conserve the records, and return them to safekeeping. Through a joint venture between the Tennessee State Library and Archives and the Genealogical Society of Utah (LDS), Tennessee's earliest loose records can be filmed. I am working with the GSU as a local point of contact to try to convince the county records custodians in East Tennessee to let the filming crew have access to the records. That is how I got to witness this nightmare. When I recently helped survey the Grainger County records, I was saddened beyond measure. We could find no loose records (court cases papers, marriage licenses, etc.) from before about 1880. Most of the old, leather-bound volumes are also gone. Thank goodness the State Library and Archives microfilmed most of them about 20 years ago.