<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=1j4x59_1DY8sttB00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=1j4x59_1DY8sttB00" width="666" height="500" ></figure>For nearly a decade, searching for some of Aransas County’s oldest public records required visiting offices in multiple buildings and even requesting vital records stored in a warehouse in Dallas.Since Hurricane Harvey smacked into Rockport in August of 2017, the clerks’ offices in Aransas County have been almost nomadic, with homes ranging from shared office space to a former department store.Now, nearly nine years after Harvey reshaped Rockport, the Aransas County Clerk’s Office will return to the county courthouse. More importantly, though, the records — everything from criminal and court records to valuable public records from the 19th century — will once again be back under one roof.Aransas County Clerk Misty Kimbrough said they plan to move into their new office on the first floor of the Aransas County Courthouse on Aug. 18. The move will begin a three-day closure while staff relocate the office, along with criminal and court records, to the courthouse.Just as important, installation of a new fire suppression system later this year will allow the county’s historical records to begin making their way home from North Texas. The records include land deeds, commissioners court minutes, birth, death and marriage records and other permanent documents dating back to the county’s founding in 1871 and even earlier. They’ve been housed in a warehouse in Dallas the last few years, costing the county thousands in storage fees.The District Clerk’s office, which handles records and operations for district courts, moved into the courthouse in mid-April.“Having records in one spot, allows us to serve the public better,” Kimbrough said on July 20. “We haven’t had all our records in one place since the day Harvey hit, and we are struggling trying to meet records requests. It will save my people 10% of their time every week.”From the day Harvey hit, the clerk’s offices had to find a way to operate because courts had to go on along with important county meetings. Births, deaths, and marriages did not stop, nor did requests for vital records.That began a journey that saw the offices move from temporary spots in other county offices in the aftermath of Harvey to multiple temporary locations around town to its current office in a strip mall on Hwy 35 in Rockport.“The clerk’s office can function anywhere, and we’ve had to do it … we had court on the street (after Harvey),” said former district clerk Pam Heard, who retired in 2025. “That’s not the issue, the issue is, it’s so inconvenient for the public to go here, there and yonder. And the last place you expect it to be is in the middle of a shopping center next to a flower shop.”Returning to the courthouse, though, offered multiple obstacles for the offices.The district clerk’s office saw some damage after Harvey, but the county clerk’s office sustained extensive damage, leaving records damaged and then sat in office space without air conditioning. Many of the office’s permanent records, and many dating back to the 19th century, were first sent to Michigan for mold remediation at one time.Other records were stored in other buildings around town as well, and many of the criminal and court records are currently stored in file cabinets and boxes in the clerk’s current location. Kimbrough added that an effort in the 1980s to digitize records has helped preserve many of the county’s historical documents despite the disruption from Harvey.State law requires any building constructed after 2013 to house permanent records to protect those records from fire, water, steam, structural collapse, unauthorized access, theft and similar hazards, while also shielding them from direct sunlight.The law does not require a specific type of system, but to comply with the statute, the courthouse could not use a standard sprinkler system, Kimbrough said.Kimbrough said that as county officials scrambled to redesign the courthouse from three stories to two after voters rejected a larger project, plans to upgrade the fire suppression system were lost in the shuffle.“The architects had only done remodeling on courthouses and never built one from scratch since the statute had changed,” Heard said. “Since it was a new build, it had to be a certain way. They put the sprinkler system in there and we said, ‘That can’t be there, and if it’s there the records aren’t coming here.’”Kimbrough said the office will have a “dry-pipe system” for the office, and when it is completed, she said the goal is to have it complete by December, the historical records that are currently in a warehouse in Dallas will return to Aransas County. A dry-pipe system uses pressurized air rather than water-filled pipes until the system is activated, reducing the risk of accidental water damage to records.Kimbrough said the cost of the system is estimated between $500,000 and $800,000. To pay for the project, county commissioners appropriated a portion of the $6 million tax note approved in September 2025.The county currently pays around $5,000 a month to store records, including in Dallas, part of more than $150,000 in annual rent and storage costs tied to the clerks’ offices and records. The amount of records in the warehouse, Kimbrough said, will require about one and half semi-truck trailer loads. “As soon as the fire suppression system is fixed all of our land and deed records will be brought back to the office,” said Kimbrough, who began her term as county clerk on Jan. 1, 2023. “The goal is no later than February or March of 2027.”Today, some records requests can take days because documents must be retrieved from the warehouse in Dallas. Once those historical records return, those same requests can often be handled while residents wait in the office.Nearly nine years after Hurricane Harvey scattered the county’s records across multiple locations, they are finally headed home.“I can’t even describe how happy that makes me,” Kimbrough said. “Having the records that by law should be searchable for anyone who comes into our office, and they’ve not been able to do that for nine years … there are certain things we’ve not been able to provide people … serving the public again will be huge.”</div></body>

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For nearly a decade, searching for some of Aransas County’s oldest public records required visiting offices in multiple buildings and even requesting vital records stored in a warehouse in Dallas. Since Hurricane Harvey smacked into Rockport in August of 2017, the clerks’ offices in Aransas County have been almost...

Aransas County historical records returning home

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For nearly a decade, searching for some of Aransas County’s oldest public records required visiting offices in multiple buildings and even requesting vital

Aransas County historical records returning home

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