Volunteers combine efforts to preserve Morgantown City Hall Documents

The Preservation Alliance of West Virginia's Preserve WV AmeriCorps program, a statewide service initiative dedicated to preserving West Virginia's history, has partnered with local volunteers and the West Virginia and Regional History Center of West Virginia University Libraries to create safe archival housing for thousands of documents that will likely prove to be of historic value. Currently at Morgantown City Hall, these documents include maps, property deeds, meeting minutes, city manager files, building permits, and others. The operation will occur on Wednesday, June 6th and Thursday, June 7th, 2018 from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.
Volunteers will be responsible for organizing, cataloging, scanning, and moving documents into acid-free containers and transporting them from Morgantown City Hall to the West Virginia and Regional History Center.
Preservation Alliance of West Virginia’s Preserve WV AmeriCorps Member serving at the West Virginia and Regional History Center, Samuel Richardson, organized the project with the help of Morgantown City Hall Engineer, Alex Stockdale. “The data provided by these documents can never be replaced once lost. It is imperative that these documents are placed in appropriate archival housing, and stored at the West Virginia Regional History Center. These efforts will enable researchers, historians, lawyers, and scientists to access these files and extract legal data and geographic information, as well as discover the industrial heritage of the local community,” said Richardson.
Richardson is still recruiting volunteers to serve the local Morgantown community in this effort. Interested parties should contact Sam at sricha12@mail.wvu.edu to sign up and receive additional details. Volunteers will be provided lunch by the Preservation Alliance of West Virginia. Students seeking volunteer opportunities will have the ability to sign up and register their hours of service with the West Virginia University Center for Service and Learning.

This project is created in part by a Preserve WV AmeriCorps position made possible through a Preservation Alliance of West Virginia grant from Volunteer WV, the State’s Commission for National and Community Service, and the Corporation for National and Community Service.