New archives to preserve area history for years to come

By Jack Carver

Belleville and Hastings County will be getting a new place to preserve their history for future generations.

Richard Hughes, president of the Hastings County Historical Society, said that preserving these documents is important.

“You hear people say that this is all old, its gone,” said Hughes. “But it’s a part of what we are, this is where we came from.”

Hughes said in a speech to attendees at the archives opening that the society wants people to feel proud about the history of their community.

“We want to bring in people to teach them about the community and the wonderful things that have happened here,” said Hughes. “Which we do believe will plant the seed of civic pride in residents.”

The new building will consist of three floors total including processing rooms, storage and places where people can come in and search through the archives.

The Hastings County Historical Society entered into a partnership with the City of Belleville and the County of Hastings to create a new building to store over 50,000 pictures and several thousand documents in.

The archives are currently being stored in a small, cramped building and have had mice problems in the past. So Sharon White, archivist,  said she is glad that the historical society is getting a safer place to store these documents.

“If you visited our old building, you’d see why we need this new building,” said White. “It’s really short of space. We don’t have the ability to have one area to have all the records with controlled humidity and those things to make the documents last longer.”

The historical society needs $150,000 to fulfil the $400,000 they require to finish the project. Nick White, a volunteer at the current community archives, said that the new archives is slated to be done in 2013.