Butler County likely has hundreds of thousands of records dating back to its incorporation in 1800.

Because each county department maintains its own records, former chief clerk Amy Wilson said it is almost impossible to know how many records the county has accumulated.

The chief clerk is in charge of records kept in the county commissioners’ office. These include minutes from commissioners’ meetings, ordinances and resolutions.

Those records in the government center go back to 1909. Older records are kept at Butler Indoor Storage in Butler and at Iron Mountain in Boyers.

Most of these records are not digitized.

Records that come under the chief clerk’s management are in a locked room on the fifth floor of the government center.

“They show wear and tear, but they are in decent shape,” said Wilson, who no longer works for the county.

The earliest records were handwritten, with a few typed pages inserted here and there.

“Very nice penmanship,” Wilson said.

Commissioner logs

In the early days of the county, a daily log of commissioners’ activities were put in log books, Wilson said. For a normal day, the log entries read, “The board of commissioners spent the day in the office attending to routine business.”

On Feb. 12, 1909, the commissioners approved a $1 tax on male dogs and a $2 tax on female dogs.

On March 6, 1909, the commissioners appointed Howard Graham to be the superintendent of the county home — which now is privatized and is called the Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center — at a salary of $650 per year. His wife was appointed as the home’s matron with a $350 salary.

By the mid-1940s, the records were typewritten and the daily log of the commissioners’ activities was reduced to a roll call.

The minutes are filed by date. Minutes from the commissioners meetings are filed immediately after they are approved.

The records can be accessed via a right-to-know request, but Wilson said few people are interested in looking at old commissioners’ minutes.

The room also has prison board records going back to the 1950s. An entry from the mid-1950s details the dedication of the former prison building on Vogely Street.

Additionally, the room contains one book of minutes for the Sunnyview board.

“Who knows why we have it,” Wilson said.

She said the remainder of those board books likely are somewhere at Sunnyview, noting that the board of governors controlled those minutes. An entry from 1957 shows the facility bought 10 used bedside tables for $12 each.

Law library

In the law library in the basement of the courthouse, ordinances made by municipalities in the county are stored. Librarian Sue Megarry said that by statute, municipalities that pass ordinances have to get them notarized and send them to the law library.

These are kept in binders. Some of them are originals, but many are photocopies. They are not digitized and stored electronically.

“I wanted to and I started to,” Megarry said.

However, she said the job was a lot more work than expected and could not be done in addition to other duties.

To maintain the older records, she tries to keep a steady temperature and keep the humidity low — which can be a challenge in the old courthouse, where water seeps into the basement during heavy rains.

“I have three different dehumidifiers running,” Megarry said.

She said she finds some of the older ordinances interesting.

“You can see a history of the region,” Megarry said.

In Bruin, a 1902 ordinance outlawed any “show, side show, menagerie, circus, mountebank, juggler or any theatrical performance” on any street or public square, or in any building without first paying for a permit.

Another ordinance passed in the borough that year prohibits riding a horse in the streets any faster than a “slow trot.”

A 1900 ordinance in Mars prohibited jumping off or onto a moving train. Violators could be fined from $1 to $5.

The library also keeps some old law books. The oldest one has state laws running from 1781 to 1790, although Megarry said it likely is a reprint and not from the late 1700s.

“They’re kind of moldering away,” Megarry said.

She said few people look at these books, and said they also are not digitized.

Judy Moser, who just retired as register of wills/clerk of orphan’s court, said her office has at least a quarter-million records stored.

These records include estate records going back to 1800 and marriage license applications going back to 1885. Birth and death certificate records from 1893 to 1905 also are on record.

Most of what her office covers are permanent records and must be maintained forever.

“We’re not allowed to destroy them,” Moser said.

The office began digitizing its records in 2000, and all records back through 1996 are available digitally. Older documents are on film, and the original paper documents are stored in acid-free boxes at Iron Mountain where temperature and humidity are kept at a constant level.

Panel oversees records

Moser was the chairman of the county’s Record Management Improvement Committee. A state law authorizes fees from the recorder of deeds’ office to create a fund to be used for improving record-keeping practices.

She said the committee has given funds to different county departments working on projects such as digitizing records. Departments also use funds to buy software to help with record-keeping.

Records in the clerk of courts office are digitized back to 1994.

Clerk of Courts Lisa Lotz said they started imaging files in 2001. The digital files are accessible to officials including judges, district attorneys, public defenders and people at the prison through an internal computer program. The public also can look at the files in the clerk of courts office.

“Everybody has access to these,” Lotz said.

The computer program INFOCON has all case files available attached to the docket for each case.

Files that are not digitized are stored in other ways. Every docket book going back to the 1800s is available on film. Some items are not all on film and only are on paper.

The office has roughly the past 10 years of its paper documents in the office. Older paper documents are kept at Iron Mountain.

Family histories sought

People doing family histories tend to make the most requests on old cases, Lotz said. When requests are made, the office retrieves the old paper documents from Iron Mountain and makes copies.

Among the most popular requests are for old murder cases.

One recently requested case involved the 1937 stabbing deaths of Florence Tait and Dorothy Bash. Floyd Tait Jr., Florence’s son, pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.

When the office received the original paper records from Iron Mountain, they discovered that the case file included a full transcript of the trial and crime scene photographs that were entered into evidence.

“We were shocked to see that,” Lotz said.

Another recently requested case involved Phoebe Shugart, who was found guilty of first degree murder in the poisoning death — “with felonious and wicked intent” — of her husband in 1869.