Volunteers important to county archive

If you have some extra time on your hands and enjoy history, you might consider helping out the people at the Cape Girardeau County Archive Center.

They need help digitizing records.

The center opened in 2001 at 112 E. Washington St. in Jackson. The number of volunteers at the center has decreased over the years. Having digital records that can be easily researched will help preserve the paper records. Plus, it'll make the archive center more user-friendly.

The archive center houses documents from the circuit court in Jackson, the common pleas courthouse in Cape Girardeau and various other county offices and entities, according to director Steve Pledger, as reported by Marybeth Niederkorn. There are also archives from Jackson's early-1900s German-language newspaper Deutscher Volksfreund and minutes from County Commission meetings dating back to 1805 adorn the shelves, along with hundreds of boxes of marriage licenses dated from 1805 to present day, and other miscellaneous items available to the public, according to Niederkorn's story.

Historical preservation is important, and something we at the Southeast Missourian take pride in as well. If you have some free time and would like to help, we'd encourage you to find out more at the archive center. You're sure to pick up some interesting bits of knowledge about our area's story while you're there.