Pennsylvania State Archives Reopen!

The Pennsylvania State Archives officially re-opened their doors to the public on December 13th, 2023. According to an alert on their website, the archives are open for research Wednesday through Saturday from 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM.

In anticipation of their move to a larger facility, the archives closed to in-person visits in March 2020. The archives house about 250 million physical documents along with millions more digital government records. All of which have been selected due to their historical, legal, or financial value to the Commonwealth. Users of Jenkins often turn to them in situations where all other avenues of research have been exhausted.

In its previous building, the PA State Archives had been increasingly running out of space. Which is why an expansion has been in the works for quite some time.

According to an article from the Centre Daily Times, the new building boasts six storage rooms which are kept at 35% humidity with temperatures ranging from 20 to 60 degrees to support document preservation. In total these rooms contain 34 miles of shelving and hold 88,560 boxes containing about 250 million documents.

These documents date from 1664 to present with materials from the Commonwealth’s executive departments, boards, and commissions, as well as records from the legislative and judicial branches of the state government. There are also over 500 manuscript groups containing records and papers of prominent individuals, families, business concerns, and numerous social, cultural, political, and military organizations relating to Pennsylvania history.

For more information regarding records and collections at the Pennsylvania State Archives take a look at their collections brochure linked on the right side of this page.

Happy researching!