A whole lot of local history is waiting to be explored in midtown Harrisburg.
The new State Archives building at 1681 N. Sixth St., which opened to the public in December, is a vast improvement over the old facility at Third and Forster streets in the Capitol Complex, according to archivist Brett M. Reigh.
The Pennsylvania State Archives, according to its website, “collects, preserves and makes available for study the permanently-valuable public records of the Commonwealth, with particular attention given to the records of state government. The State Archives also collects papers of private citizens and organizations relevant to Pennsylvania history.”
Construction of the new facility, which began in May 2020 and was completed last summer, cost $75 million.
Reigh – himself born and raised in Lebanon city – was happy to chat with LebTown about the new location, as well as the wealth of Lebanon County history that can found there.
The Pennsylvania State Archives are administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. The new building provides 146,000 square feet of space, with double the storage capacity of the old one (which was built in 1965 and has found new life storing items from the adjacent State Museum of Pennsylvania). The building show have ample space for the collections to expand over the next 100 years, at least.
Reigh has been with the State Archives for more than 22 years. For anyone who is familiar with the old location, he said, a lot is different now.
“Everything has changed,” he said. “The most important thing to me is the physical safety of the documents. … All of the documents are now in a physically safe and stable environment.”
Storage areas for historic documents now are kept at a constant 60 degrees Fahrenheit and 39% relative humidity. “Humidity in the old building was hard to control,” Reigh said. There are dedicated storage units for film and other media that are kept even cooler, he added, and the building also has a state-of-the-art fire detection system.
Also, he said, “the search rooms here are spectacular … and the facility is 10 times nicer just in its physical appearance. Another major improvement is the parking situation. We were downtown. Now we’re in midtown Harrisburg, and there’s free off-street parking.”
Even so, he said, the public’s use of the archives hasn’t really changed all that much since it reopened. “It’s about the same,” Reigh said. “In about the last month or so, we’ve seen more people come in – it’s taken a month or two for people to realize we’re open.”
There’s been a definite uptick in research by mail, he noted – a service the archivists weren’t able to provide during the lengthy moving process, which began in March 2020.
But while the archives might seem intimidating – after all, it’s a vast library of official, sometimes very old documents – Reigh said first-time visitor shouldn’t feel overwhelmed.
“I hope it’s pretty easy to use,” he said. “I work in the reference section, so I’m out front working with the public. It’s really easy, whether you’re using original records or the digitized microfilm.”
A visit typically begins with a quick interview with an archivist, who will point the guest in the right direction. “We help you every step of the way,” Reigh said.
And that’s important, because the archives have millions of documents stored there, plus “millions and millions of digitized materials online,” he noted. “They’re all on our public access computers.”
Some materials are even available to view from computers at home or in public libraries. Ancestry.com, for instance, has scanned countless genealogy records into its database, Reigh explained, and patrons on-site are allowed free access to Ancestry.com during their visit. The State Archives has put maps online, as well as some microfilm rolls.
“That’s what we’re going increasingly towards,” he said. “We are scanning more and more materials. We’re making an effort to put as much online as we can.”
Historic documents in the collection range from the original 1681 charter granted by King Charles II to William Penn, a map showing the horse-and-wagon road network in Pennsylvania in the 1740s, and the 1780 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery to more modern records such as the Pennsylvania Commission on partial meltdown at Three Mile Island and state police Col. Paul Evanko’s field notes from the Flight 93 crash in Shanksville on Sept. 11, 2001. All the acts of the state Legislature are also preserved on site.
That said, Reigh noted the archives are not a museum, and very few historical documents are on display … although, he added, they are working on a small exhibit area near the front of the building that will feature some of the more interesting items. Also, he said, the archives has a “digital wall” with “extremely large touchscreen monitors” where patrons can view selected documents, oral histories, and maps.
There are more than 250 million documents in the collection and, according to Reigh, most of them are available to be viewed at any time by patrons. Some items are restricted, he noted, such as recent state hospital records and items that are not in good enough shape, physically, to be taken out and viewed.
They also have a small research library, with 400 to 500 books related to Pennsylvania history that people can use as well.
At the grand opening of the new Pennsylvania State Archives building in December, according to a PennWATCH report, Governor Josh Shapiro said the state archivists “work hard to preserve timeless treasures that tell the story of Pennsylvania. I’m proud to join the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission in celebrating the grand opening of a space that gives them the tools they need to preserve and maintain our archives.”
Shapiro added: “Understanding our history is key to determining the path forward – and I want Pennsylvanians for generations to come to be able to rediscover our history and learn from it. We’re committed to reminding Pennsylvanians that these archives aren’t just here to protect our Commonwealth’s treasures – they’re here for them to use.”
Reigh noted the archives are free to use. The only cost, he said, is if patrons want photocopies of any records.
So, what’s in the collection from Lebanon?
“All sorts of stuff,” Reigh said.
“The main thing is county and municipal records. We have microfilm copies of deed books, wills, tax records, all sorts of things,” he said. “We also have original county government records.”
Most of the documents pertaining to Lebanon County are part of a larger collection, Reigh noted; for instance, records on the applications for and installations of historic markers throughout Lebanon County are part of a broader set of records for markers across the entire state. There are also numerous maps of Pennsylvania, or portions of the commonwealth, that show the evolution of county lines through history.
Those borders kept changing in the early years of the commonwealth, and the archives have documentation of the formation of Lebanon County from a much larger Dauphin County on Feb. 16, 1813 (as well as the separation of Dauphin County from Lancaster County on March 4, 1785, and the separation of Lancaster County from Chester County on May 10, 1729).
“We have all sorts of military records dating all the way back to the Revolutionary War,” Reigh added. “Within those records, we have documents pertaining to veterans who served in Lebanon County through all of this nation’s conflicts.”
And then there are the photographs. LOTS of them. Again, Reigh noted that some Lebanon County photos can be found in the general collection as well as in some specific collections.
Among them are photos from the National Guard training center at Mount Gretna in the early 20th century. Photos from the county’s iron furnaces and other industrial sites. Photos from highways and roads, including construction of the Pennsylvania Turnpike through Lebanon County.
“We have a pretty good set of postcards from Lebanon County. Those are actually up online,” Reigh said. “We have records that pertain to the Lebanon County railroad lines. And we do have a few collections that pertain to individuals that were from or associated with Lebanon County.”
Among them, as examples, are a collection related to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church at Sixth and Chestnut streets, and papers on the life of Bill Fritz, a miner at Cornwall ore banks.
Mostly, Reigh said, the archives are used for personal family research – 75 to 80 percent of the visitors to the site are seeking genealogical information.
“I would say our most popular groups of records are vital statistics records – primarily birth and death certificates,” he said.
A fair amount of academic research also goes on there, from high school history projects to college-level term papers and other projects.
According to the archives website, the facility is open to the public 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. It is closed Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays, as well as state and federal holidays.
“The new building is something spectacular,” Reigh said. He noted that, on Wednesdays at 1:30 p.m., from now through June 5, they are offering free tours of the archives. No reservations are required, he said – just show up at the archives on time.
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