Publisher's Note

By Robin Gregg

The rumors have hit the streets so I will try to explain why the Monroe County Appeal moved the archives out of the Monroe County Historical Society.

There were several issues that added up while the papers were at the Monroe County Historical Society. One being the nature of how they were handled and the brittle ones were being opened. They fall apart in your hands; this was a big problem because they need to be preserved. They were allowed to look at them with no gloves and care. Myself and two others met together to handle the situation, of which was never taken care of. Two, certain people, (will remain unnamed) were not communicating as they should have or were communicating with the wrong person by harassing them. Three, I finally got someone to volunteer to write the Monroe County History Column, which everyone has missed for over a year. In order for Dr. Jim Foster to write said column, he needs access, of which there was none at the Monroe County Historical Society. That's all that needs to be said at this time.

After lots of thought, it was best to remove them, which we did February 14, 2023. They are now located with several other Monroe County History at the Shelby County Historical Society where they will be in an environmentally controlled room and will be respected while using gloves to handle them and the brittle ones will not be handled to preserve them. They will also ALL be placed onto a website to where anyone can access them. They were NOT donated to either Historical Society, they were only storing them as when we moved office locations, we did not have the room for them nor do we now.

Once the Shelby County Historical Society's state of the art new building is built, they will have a display room all to themselves.