Closure of the National Archives in Seattle

On Monday, January 13, 2020, the staff at the National Archives at Seattle received notification that within the next four years, the facility will be closed, and the records will be transferred to the NARA facilities in Kansas City, Missouri or Riverside, CA.

The National Archives at Seattle  has 50,000 case files from the Chinese Exclusion Act from Chinese who entered the U.S. through the ports of Seattle, Sumas, Port Townsend,  Washington; Portland, Oregon; and Vancouver, B.C. from 1882 to 1943.  A dedicated staff of local volunteers is indexing these files.  If these records are moved 1,000 miles away, this valuable work will end.

Anyone who has ever gotten research assistance from the National Archives staff appreciates their vast institutional knowledge of the records. This will be lost if the National Archives is closed and moved from the Pacific Northwest.

More background information on the closure can be found at Save National Archives at Seattle.

For a thorough discussion of the proposed closure and updates go to Feliks Banel’s My Northwest online column

See Public Buildings Reform Board (PBRB) for the complete report. Submit your comments to the PBRB at  fastainfo@pbrb.gov

Call the National Archives at 1-86-NARA-NARA (1-866-272-6272) or contact them at archives.gov/contact

Please call your senators, congressional representatives and let them know you want these records to remain at the National Archives in Seattle.

Thank you.
Trish Hackett Nicola
Blog Editor