LIMESTONE COUNTY, Ala. – Limestone County residents can now take a trip down memory lane.

The Limestone County Archives Center, based in Athens, says it soon will have most of its public records, photos, and documents digitized – all to be searchable.

Head Archivist Rebekah Davis says this is typically what you see the biggest cities in the country doing the last several years, making this feature for the county all the more special.

“It’s not fair for me to be the only one who has that sort of perspective of my hometown. And so that’s part of what we’re trying to do to share – to help other people have that greater appreciation and understanding of why we are where we are today,” she said.

Thanks to the archive office being a beta tester for a software company which specializes in digital preservation, it received extra storage for all the records at no extra cost to the county.

All these items are searchable and downloadable using keywords on limestonearchives.com, and it’s all free.

One of the most impactful lessons from these pages and photos, accessible to anyone, is the history of schools and businesses, including in formerly enslaved Black neighborhoods.

This Davis says is especially important to see for yourself during Black History Month – to get a grasp of how life was for so many years and what its effects are still today in Limestone County.

“So someone can go on our site and search ‘African Americans’ and you’ll have basically a curated collection of photos, and records, and articles, and so on, all related to the African American experience.”

The Athens community already has plans to use the new digital archives – kids at Athens Elementary already plan to feature what they learn in the archives in class exhibit projects later this semester.