Alpine's archivist preserves county's past

What is an archivist and why would a small county like Alpine ever need one?

An archivist is a keeper of memory, who collects, organizes and protects authentic historical materials while helping others make effective use of them.

Alpine County may never have had an archivist if, in 1960, a history major from University of California, Davis, named Nancy Thornburg hadn't stumbled on boxes of papers and leather-bound ledgers on the dirt floor of the courthouse basement, tucked behind the sheriff's office.

Thornburg had training and interest in historical documents, and her new mother-in-law was the former clerk-auditor-recorder of the county, so when no one else seemed to have an interest in the "old stuff that nobody wants to see," Thornburg began to organize and protect it.

"I have learned along the way," said Thornburg. "My first decision was to appeal to the board of supervisors for help archiving the existing records. We formed the Historical Records Commission, and I wrote a grant application to the National Archives. The grant was approved for $27,000 to hire an a professional archivist for one year to get an orderly system in place for the county."

After learning how to hire an archivist, Thornburg carefully checked credentials and the county hired Inez Prinster. Prinster rented a motel room in Markleeville for a year and spent every weekday going through boxes, organizing, and setting up a system that would be workable for the future.

During the project in l986, Prinster and her able assistant, Mary Wood, were surprised by boxes of records that mysteriously showed up in the sheriff's office.

Apparently, in the 1950s when the old records became cumbersome, the board of supervisors authorized them to be discarded.

When word got out that records were in the dump, several private citizens took whatever they could find and stored them.

"It is a mystery how those boxes showed up from time to time. The sheriff's office where Prinster worked was locked every night, but four or five times during the year, the archivist found new boxes waiting for her when she arrived at work," Thornburg remembers.

The county archive was in good order, but there was no one professionally trained to keep the system going after Wood left county employment. Sometimes the job fell to a library assistant, sometimes the archive was simply ignored.

Meanwhile, Thornburg served as county museum director for 15 years, learning more about acquisition and storing of historical documents.

She retired in 1997 but kept a keen interest in county history and archives.

By 2006, it was apparent that the archives were being underserviced. Thornburg brought the matter to the board and offered to work three hours a week as assistant archivist. They hired her on the spot.

She generally works on Friday morning, but she is also available by appointment. By law, the archives must be available to the public because they contain official county records.

Thornburg has helped authors and others find mining records, family members, trace property, find a naturalization paper, and many others.

The collection includes court cases and documents, assessment records, grand jury reports, board of supervisors minutes and subject files, and resolutions and ordinances, district attorney records, and so on.

The collection date back to 1864, when the county was created, and is nearly 100 percent in tact through about 1960.

Recently the supervisors approved the purchase of a database system, Past Perfect, which is designed for museum and archives collections.

Eventually she and Assistant County Librarian Rita Lovell hope to have the information online.

October is Archives Month, and there will be an open house on 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. Saturday at the archives, located in the Alpine County Library.

Thornburg will be there to answer questions and show a sampling of the collection. Light refreshments will be served in the library.