Historical documents from Fernie City Hall will be taken for archival and preservation in the local museum.
The documents themselves are unrelated to the City of Fernie’s affairs but are relevant to the Elk Valley’s historical record.
“The building the City Hall is in, used to be the office of the Crownest Pass Coal Company’s office. Because of that, they have a lot of records in their basement that were once Crownest Pass Coal Company records,” said Lindsay Vallance, Fernie Museum Collection Management Coordinator.
That said, Fernie’s records will be left in City Hall.
The Fernie and District Historical Society will take the coal company’s records and will store them in their own specialized archives.
“We’re trying to move them into our storage spaces that are a bit better organized and will hopefully be able to preserve the records in better condition than that are in right now,” said Vallance.
Everything from maps to lease agreements and employee records will be included in the move.
“A lot of it is mining records, so there’s a lot of maps and surveys of old mines that aren’t used anymore, and we have a lot of lease agreements from outside the City of Fernie when people were buying houses and buying land from the Crownest Pass Coal Company,” said Vallance.
Vallance said the documents contain information that may be useful in future research.
“If someone is researching, for example, coal mining history or even just people looking for family members,” explained Vallance. “Every single person who worked at the mines in the first half of the 20th century has an employee record, and those can be very valuable when you’re doing genealogy.”
Both official business and personal information can be found in the newly obtained collection.
“They’re not just industrial or financial records, they’re also personal records of people’s grandparents and great-grandparents,” said Vallance. “Hopefully, we’ll have that available for people in a way they weren’t before.”
City officials said the materials will be cleaned and transported to acid-free archival storage, then organized and catalogued for future reference.