Daily Herald opinion: Keep historical documents local: Regional archives should stay put, until feds prove they can keep them safe, accessible

Not a single document in the National Archives at Chicago should be boxed and prepared to move to a new location until the federal government can prove beyond a doubt that our history is safe in their hands.

As our Barbara Vitello reported on Wednesday, the National Archives and Records Administration has announced plans to close the Chicago NARA facility at 7358 S. Pulaski Road and move about 140,000 cubic feet of archival material … somewhere. These historical documents are from the Great Lakes states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and they encompass permanent records made by federal agencies and courts, naturalizations, Bureau of Indian Affairs documents, Great Lakes maritime records, documents from the Pullman Strike of 1894, and much more. Oh, so much more.

Residents, genealogists, archivists and journalists have access to all of it for their research, a truly priceless treasure trove that tells millions of stories that paint our lives and our history, if only you know where to look.

Now, however, archivists and genealogists are terrified some of these documents will vanish, never to be found again. Earlier this month NARA put out a call for bids from moving companies in order to relocate an estimated 3.2 million cubic feet of Federal Records Center and archival documents out of Chicago; San Bruno, California; and Seattle between Sept. 1, 2026, and Sept. 30, 2029, sending them to 12 locations around the country. No one seems to know where the Chicago records are going, or if they’ll even remain together.

Federal officials have said very little publicly about closing the NARA facility, possibly because they are in talks with the employee union, the American Federation of Government Employees. In some published accounts, officials have pointed to low visitor numbers as one justification for closing regional NARA facilities. They also point to general cost-cutting and a need to reduce the federal real-estate portfolio. “This decision is an opportunity for NARA to maintain our core mission and functions while improving efficiency and effectiveness,” NARA Chief Operating Officer Jay Trainer wrote in an email to staff.

Archivists and genealogists are skeptical, and so are we, primarily because the feds’ priorities are skewed. Maintaining continuous public access to these documents, with the vital help of knowledgeable professional staff, is what matters here. The care of our cherished historical archives, many of them fragile – but well-cared for in Chicago – is equally important.

Third, but just as key, is that nowhere in its scant commentary on the move is found a federal commitment to getting this archival material digitized. Digitizing at least the most-requested documents could improve public interest ten-fold or more, but all of it should be available online. A lack of funds and a downsizing of staff – in Chicago and at NARA centers around the nation – has kept serious digitization and indexing from taking place. In Chicago, reportedly less than one-third of the archives are online, and not all of those are indexed, making specific documents impossible to find.

All of this is vastly more important than making a real-estate killing.

Moreover, protecting historical records is a national issue, not Chicago’s alone. Regional NARA centers in Massachusetts and New York closed in 2023 and 2024, with records sent to Philadelphia and Kansas City. Alaska’s NARA center closed in 2014, with records moved to Seattle. Now Seattle’s office is in peril – after surviving a federal effort in 2019-21 to move its records to Kansas City and Riverside, California. A major public pressure campaign, involving organizations of local Native Americans, helped stave off that move at the time.

A public pressure campaign from residents of the six Great Lakes states might work here, too. If you want to keep our records local, write your federal congresspeople and senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth. Urge them to tell NARA to delay closing the Chicago office until its contents have all been digitized and indexed; until the federal government has a plan we can all live with.

Then, and maybe only then, could the original records be transferred to environmentally safe holding facilities, designed for the preservation and care of fragile archives.

We are living in an age where efforts to politicize American history are ongoing in many places. The only way to combat false history is with truth. Every day in the Chicago National Archives, seasoned employees are handling truth with the care and dignity it deserves. Let’s give them a hand.