An interesting article appeared in an older issue of Ancestry magazine, March/April 2005. It caught my eye because it fell in with a situation we have here at the Fenton, specifically, storage of our gargantuan collection of documents, photos, maps, and so many other things that may surprise you. Like what? Okay, how about pianos, barber chairs, dental chairs, voting machines, an iron lung, yes, an iron lung! These items number in the thousands, seriously! The Mormon folks in Salt Lake had a similar problem, but they were fortunate that they didn’t have any large physical items to deal with. Their collection was related to genealogy only. Even with that advantage they still had millions of items to store. Happily the digital age came about and they were able to convert many of their documents into digital files, which of course takes up significantly less space. Even with that advantage they still needed some sort of secure and safe facility to house the files and originals. That’s where the vault was born. They acquired some land separate from the main research center and actually hollowed a space in a mountain from solid granite! This was no small hole in the wall! It houses billions of records in many forms. The vault is officially known as the Granite Mountain Records Vault, it was dedicated on June 22, 1966. There are 65 full-time employees who work at the vault.
We made two attempts to get update information directly from the LDS, but did not receive a reply. If you would like to read the entire in-depth article, stop in at the Hall House Research Center at 73 Forest Avenue Monday through Friday 10 a.m to 4 p.m.
