JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A treasure trove of memories currently tucked away in a basement room of city hall will soon be digitized and available to the public.
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It’s part of a new effort to preserve city history Jacksonville City Council agreed to fund this week.
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The detailed record of the city’s collective history, documented in hundreds of books containing countless pages date back 150 years.
It was just a few months ago City Council President Ron Salem (R-Group 2 At-Large) was invited down a backdoor freight elevator by a colleague.
A few steps down a hall and through an inconspicuous door, he was greeted by shelves upon shelves of city records, detailing the actions of city government going back as far as 1870.
Salem was especially impressed with the flawless calligraphy in some of the older records - Handwritten accounts of council actions that now-a-days would be quickly typed up on a stenograph.
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“It is clear as day to read these things,” said Salem.
Salem noted it’s not hard to uncover detailed insights shining a light on pivotal moments in the city’s history.
“The one that was of most interest to me was the first city council meeting after the Great Fire and the city council was planning on which buildings to build back first,” said Salem.
But Salem made another observation upon entering the room: Pipes lining the ceiling.
“Those pipes could bust at any time and ruin everything down here,” said Salem.
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So, Salem and staff crunched the numbers on what it would take to not only protect the records, but also make them available to the public.
“I just feel strongly this stuff needs to be saved, collected for future generations to go back to,” said Salem.
This Tuesday, $125,000 was green-lit for the effort.
Staff at the library will digitize all the records and post them to an online portal, so community members and researchers can view the documents from anywhere in the world.
The digitization process is expected to take about 18 months.
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The physical records will also be moved out of the basement and into a climate-controlled room in the library, to preserve the original copies of the first draft of Jacksonville’s storied history.
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