The fight against time

Susan Tucker, the president of the Thebes Historical Society, has heard rumors about the treasures once found in the old Thebes Courthouse. Pictures of Abraham Lincoln even.

But time has weathered away the artifacts and countless stories. Even the building, believed to have housed the famous slave Dred Scott, has been abandoned at times, making way for vandals and animals.

The courthouse had been used as a museum and library in the past, but was abandoned prior to the mid-1970s, when the historical society took control.

During those years of neglect the courthouse was broken into several times, by people and animals. More recently the courthouse has been at the center of a battle for its control between the historical society and the city government.

Important documents and artifacts were destroyed. No one knows their historical significance.

But the legacy of lost history at the Thebes Courthouse is not a fluke.

In a survey of 3,370 museums, archives and libraries across the country, the not-for-profit preservation groups Heritage Preservation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services found that artifacts are in severe danger. A quarter of the institutions had inadequate controls for light, temperature and humidity -- all enemies of preservation -- and 65 percent had already sustained damage to their collections. Only one in five had a paid staff dedicated to caring for stored materials.

Small-town institutions were in greatest danger of losing their history.

The problem affects many museums in this history-rich region, says Dr. Frank Nickell, director of the Center for Regional History at Southeast Missouri State University.

"Nothing lasts forever, but you can extend the life of a lot of items by proper humidity control, proper temperature control. It's a big problem for small communities," Nickell said. "All of the communities throughout Southeast Missouri that have museums have some aspect of this problem."

With all that history, priorities for preserving them must be set.

"One of the problems we have is just the fact that we can't save everything," said Nickell. "The question is, What do you save, and how do you save it?"

The problem is one of resources. Small-town historical societies simply don't have the money to install the proper climate and humidity controls, and they often lack the professional know-how in a highly specialized profession -- historic preservation.

Heat and cold can destroy paper and other artifacts, as can light.

"With every good intention and decent motivation, in a desire to share what they have they will put it in a case and expose it to light," said Nickell. "When that happens, the age is enhanced, and life expectancy is going to be less."

Scott City Historical Society president Carolyn Pendergrass knows about those problems firsthand. Her organization has plenty of items it wants to preserve but lacks the resources to properly store them.

"Things are going to be lost because of a lack of storage space," said Pendergrass.

The materials the historical society has are stored in places without climate control -- basements, attics and abandoned buildings. And having no storage facility, Pendergrass said the historical society is also losing out on artifacts residents have in their own homes.

"I think if we had a museum, or someplace where we could store everything, we would be able to encourage people to bring in these materials and store them," Pendergrass said.

The Brazeau Historical Society hasn't had as many problems gathering people's historic materials. The nearly 200-year-old town of Brazeau stores and displays items in a museum set up in a historic schoolhouse.

The society doesn't have proper climate and humidity control in the museum, said historical society member Katherine Lane, meaning all those artifacts and materials won't last as long as they could.

State and federal grants for historic preservation. But the lack of professional preservation expertise in small-town historical societies often is accompanied by a lack of grant-writing knowledge.

In a competitive grant market, they must compete with professional grant writers who know what to do to win grants.

Success stories are out there, though. In Cape Girardeau County, the government pays for the operation of a county archive built in 2000. The county has hired three professional preservationists to staff the climate- and humidity-controlled building.

The archives house documents dating back to 1799, said director Jane Randol Jackson. Temperature is maintained around 70 degrees and humidity is kept to 40-50 percent. Before the construction of the archives, records were stored in a variety of unsafe places, such as courthouse bell towers, Jackson said.

Now they have a safe home.

Thanks to a cooperative agreement, the archives are also helping preserve artifacts from the Jackson Heritage Association. The association's collection housed in the archives includes more than 1,200 photographs and 11 lineal feet of documents.

Housing the items in the archives puts them all in a safe, centralized and easily accessible location, said association archivist Cathi Stoverink.

Another success story is the papers of the Little River Drainage District -- the government entity that drained the Southeast Missouri swamps to clear the way for farming and inhabitation. Between 1999 and 2004, those documents were stored at the Bootheel Education Center in Malden, Mo., said Lisa Speer, archivist at the university's climate-controlled department of Special Collections in Kent Library.

Before that the papers had been stored in boxes, without proper preservation techniques, in Cape Girardeau's H&H Building, where they were in danger of enhanced deterioration.

Those papers are the records of one of the shaping forces of Southeast Missouri. Speer said the documents are being organized and readied for public use in 2008.

But not all historic documents are so lucky. For every Kent Library or Cape Girardeau County Archives, there's a Thebes courthouse, where important history has been lost.

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182