EWGS Tours the Archives at Cheney

 

 Did you know that between 1863 and 1879 there was no Spokane County? The area was all part of Stevens County; the dispute over the separation and boundaries stalled in the courts for all those years.

That was just one small factoid that fifteen EWGS members learned when we had a personal tour by Lee Pierce of the Eastern Washington branch of the Washington State Archives, out on the EWU campus in Cheney. Lee has been an archivist there for 17 years and he really knows his stuff and the collections under his jurisdiction. He sticks to the rules: we all put our purses in a locker (except for David J) and could only take in our phones. He encouraged us to take photos, especially in the stacks.

Lee began our tour by explaining that “our archives is most unique in the archives’ world. China, Germany and Australia have come to learn from us. And no other state in the U.S. has an archive that is as totally geared for citizens’ access.”

The Washington Digital Archives collects both state and local governmental record groups. Lee explained that he spends most of his summers officially traveling to county  courthouse archives in Eastern Washington discussing the state of their record holdings. (He then spends the winter processing said acquisitions.)

This archives is scanning their holdings as fast as funding and people allow. Some 4,000,000 documents have already been scanned but “that’s barely 1% of what we hold,” said Lee. “The county is under no legal obligation to give their records over to us, but as time passes and shelves get full, they’re more agreeable to let us house their records forever while they keep digital copies.”

The tour progressed into the stacks, where the temperature is held to 60o and the humidity to 40%.....yes, it was cold in there. The stacks have 33,000 feet of shelf space and 28,000 feet is already full. “We hope to give back to western Washington some of their records that take up our space,” Lee quipped.

  

Lee showed us examples of some of their holdings; he’s holding an 1898 book of Spokane Jailhouse records. “Spokane was a rowdy town then and people were stupid enough to do things in public and get themselves arrested.”

It would take paragraphs and pages to outline just what all records are housed there in the “Cheney archives.” To see just what is there, first go to the main Washington Archives website and see the list there was his advice. The website we’ve all used (www.ditalarchives.wa.gov) also has such a list. Lee explained that authors wanting to write narratives or historical fiction about Spokane or eastern Washington come first to the “Cheney archives” to do local research.

SPECIAL NOTE: This was not just a tour of our Washington Archives but a reminder that while no state has quite what we have, all states do have an archives and are making strides to make their records accessible to citizens. You may not have ancestors in Washington, but realize that you do need to dig into your ancestral state’s archives to completely find your ancestor. Don’t give up!

We fifteen were all glad that we’d made the effort to come take this tour on a sunny fall October day. Most said that yes, they wanted to come and do some real research. (Mondays-Thursdays-Fridays, 8:30 to 12:00, 1:00 to 4:00, with an appointment.) 

Lee finished his time with us by saying, “I don’t care why you want a record; I’ll just help you get it …… and make copies!” (Unless the records are restricted and some are.)

 

 

Lee Pierce, Our Favorite Archivist

Lee Pierce is our best-known and favorite archivist and he will bring us up to date on the status of the Washington Digital Archives at our June 5th meeting. (A ZOOM meeting; click to our website for ZOOM directions.) 

I met with Lee in May (to donate a book and to have lunch at the Mason Jar in downtown Cheney) and we had a good visit. Lee is an ex-Marine, married with grown children and two granddaughters. He said he "loves being a paper archivist for Eastern Washington!"

I asked "how full is the physical archives?" He answered that they have 33,000 feet available and 29,000 are already filled. I asked about saving electronic records and particularly government emails. His answer: "This presents us with a problem that we don't yet have a good solution for..." I'm sure the powers to be are working on this.
 

I asked "when will the archives be open to in-person research?" Soon, hopefully, he promised. He smiled at me when he said "We've encouraged folks over 65 to participate in the SCRIBE indexing program." :-)  

Lee did explain that they do have a humungous project just waiting for volunteers to come help get it scanned and indexed. "We have 4300 binders or volumes of Property Record Cards, some 3 1/2 to 4 million cards. These were created and kept to justify property taxes and date from the 1840s to early 2000s. We hope to get students soon to come help with this.... images can be scanned and indexed in one fell swoop."

As we finished our sandwiches, Lee gave me this pearl:  "An archives is where truth resides." He says he considers himself an acolyte in the temple of truth.