Earlier last week, Washington State Historical Society announced this year's recipients of their History Awards.

Washington State Archives and Washington State Library were announced as the recipients of the David Douglas Award. According to the historical society news release, this award recognizes the significant contribution of an organization that informs or expands appreciation of Washington State history.

The State Archives and State Library are being recognized for the assistance they gave last summer helping the Aberdeen Museum of History retrieve and restore their work after the disastrous fire.

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On Saturday, June 9, 2018, Aberdeen Fire Department responded to a fire at the Aberdeen Museum of History. The firefighters worked throughout the weekend.

After the blaze was brought under control and the catastrophic extent of the damage was apparent, Washington State Archives experts traveled to Aberdeen to recover boxes of historic records from the museum’s waterlogged basement.

Fire damage to exhibits on the museum’s main and second floors was extensive, but the archives in the basement took four feet of water, putting irreplaceable records at high risk of mold damage.

Those artifacts, which date back to Aberdeen’s earliest days, were trucked to safe storage for assessment and preservation by state archivists and volunteers from other divisions of the Office of Secretary of State. Starting the Wednesday after the fire, archivists, librarians, and volunteers from around the office began sorting through the recovered materials to determine what could be saved and how much care each record required.

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Everyone involved worked continuously for several days to preserve artifacts, documents, and more. To this day, 36 people have spent a total of over 800 hours to rescue the collection. 98 to 99% of the items were saved. The collection needs further processing to flatten the puckers and wrinkles in the photos.

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It is a great honor to receive the David Douglas Award and an even greater one to be able to help museums preserve and share their history for generations to come.