Maple School Unveils Unearthed Historical Documents

Old attendance records, a land deed and district minutes were among more than 30 documents students found in 2010. Last week, after various conservation measures, the documents were placed in a permanent display at the Maple School's library.

Jeremy Kriska, Sonia Ehrlich and Emma Farrell found a box containing the historical documents while putting away equipment after a school musical. 

"They didn't actually look old," said Kriska, 16, now a junior at

Russel Maki, president of the Graphic Conservation Company, which handled the documents after they were found, said his firm mostly did some surface cleaning and long-term preservation.

"They were actually in a fairly stable environment, so they weren't deteriorating," Maki said.

The documents were in a locked box, tucked away at the bottom of a storage closet. When the box was found, a library assistant pryed it open with a screwdriver.

“There is so much in those documents that the children in District 30 can learn about their village," said Judy Hughes, president of the . "The names of people who are on streets where they may live."

"We found an attendance sheet that had the students names on it," Kriska said. "There were some with a last name like Pfingsten and other street names that we now know."