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Bexar County Works To Preserve Historic Documents

The histories of San Antonio, and those of Texas, are illuminated in stories contained in legal documents of county courthouses around the state. 

Bexar County Clerk Gerry Rickhoff is working to preserve aging, fragile documents found in the Bexar County Courthouse, and to retrieve about 70,000 documents dating back to 1717, which were given to the University of Texas by a Bexar County Commissioners Court over 100 years ago. 

At the same time, district court records from across Texas are also endangered. Some are so aged, that Bexar County District Clerk Donna Kay McKinney says they turn to dust if touched. McKinney is part of the Texas Court Records Preservation Task Force, created by the Texas Supreme Court to study and report on the preservation of both state district and county court records. 

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Eileen Pace is a veteran radio and print journalist with a long history of investigative and feature reporting in San Antonio and Houston, earning more than 50 awards for investigative reporting, documentaries, long-form series, features, sports stories, outstanding anchoring and best use of sound.