Lee County Iowa consolidated county offices for the first time in more than 150 years in June. But when making this historic move, county employees uncovered forgotten pieces of history.
KHQA's Melissa Shriver shows you what they found and where the relics are going.
Lee County Recorder Nancy Booten was boxing up to move to her new office at the Lee County Courthouse in Keokuk when she uncovered hidden treasures from Southeast Iowa's past.
"Wow this is history, this is old someone held this in their hands more than a hundred years ago," Booten said.
Some crumbling books with songs and stories from the civil war ... as well as a list of area soldiers discharged from the military. "This is called a flowage and lands along the Mississippi river."
Lee County first deputy Auditor Denise Fraise was working in this vault making room in their office for records from Keokuk when they encountered a similar find ... historic inmate registries and school funding registries from the 1800s. Those finds pointed out the extreme differences between then and now.
"It was interesting to see that people doing our jobs years ago had to do it in these huge books and we're glad we don't have to. Most of it was written in caligraphy. The fees were like 50 cents back then. They found hand stamps the recorder used and some of those things are extremely unique. They asked me what we were going to do with them and I was like wow these are priceless. They go back one hundred and 65 years."
The Lee County Board of Supervisors decided to donate the history to the County's Historical society.
Andy Andrews Historian President of North Lee County Hsitorical society said, "I haven't digested the information yet, but the most interesting thing to me is early education in Lee County. Some people try to write histories of the early one room school houses but they've lacked information."
And now they'll be able to fill in the blanks using these rare records.
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