In a setting straight out of the TV series “Cold Case,” Kathy Boatman oversees 21,364 boxes of records for El Paso County that detail public life from the county’s birth in the 1800s to the present.

The volume alone is overwhelming. Four spacious rooms at the Health Department complex on South Union Boulevard bear shelving 8 to 10 feet high neatly stacked with white uniform-sized boxes.

Aisle after aisle.

As records coordinator, it’s Boatman’s job to make sure the records are protected, stored properly, retrieved when needed and returned to where they belong. Her system works.

Her department has never mistakenly destroyed records, and she usually can find everything within a few minutes. The center gets about 233 requests for records a month.

“I like it when I can find a needle in a haystack,” she said.

When Boatman took charge in 1990, records were in a state of disarray at a building in the 1800 block of South Wahsatch Avenue. Besides that, files, records and books were piled in the courthouse’s fifth floor in no particular order. Until then, county departments kept their own records.

It was Boatman’s duty to catalogue everything. In February 1994, the records center moved to the Health Department complex.

Walking through the storage rooms, Boatman points out the lower shelves, which hold piles of books reaching back more than a century.

These leather-bound, cumbersome ledgers report tax payments, land ownership and jail bookings in graceful cursive penmanship that’s as antiquated as the information it chronicles.

Check out the 1922 jail register. Besides traditional crimes like burglary and larceny, people were booked in that Prohibition year for possessing liquor and bootlegging.

Others were arrested for being demented, a dope fiend, vagrancy, confidence games and nonsupport.

Judging from an October 1924 treasurer’s ledger, county government’s expenses haven’t changed a great deal since that time.Money went to the sheriff, county court, jury commissioner, district attorney, jail and health office. Among the largest payments was $13,866 that month for the presidential election while the poor farm got $2,992.

As for the less fortunate, the Pauper Record of 1891 indicates the county handed out $1 to $10 a month to those without means to pay for medical care and groceries. Most fell into poverty, according to the records, due to health problems – notably, consumption, or tuberculosis.

These windows into the past are rarely viewed.

Several volumes of newspaper clippings about Board of County Commissioners business in the 1970s have gathered dust. The same goes for roughly 1,900 other boxes containing commissioner records. How often does anyone reference them?

“I’ve been in the department since 1990 and I can say, never,” Boatman said.Records are accessed by those whose business relies on them, such as the District Attorney’s Office, Boatman’s biggest customer for retrievals.

The DA materials fill more than 6,000 boxes, although felony cases are in the process of being transferred to electronic images, as are other documents. But some things can’t be copied, such as physical evidence in criminal case files.

“Homicides – you can’t imagine them,” Boatman said, pointing to rows of boxes marked “Lucas Salmon and George Woldt,” whose murder case fills 45 boxes. The pair are serving life sentences for the brutal murder of 22-year-old Jacine Gielinski in 1997.

How long such records are kept is determined by policy and law. Historic documents will be kept for as long as they hold together, and some ledger and plat books are being imaged for long-term preservation.

“Anything prior to 1920 is considered historic and you don’t get rid of them,” she said.

Criminal court reporter notes must be retained for 50 years. Jail inmate medical records have to be kept for 35 years, but jail logs only two years. Personnel records stay on file for 10 years after date of termination, misdemeanor records, five years, and bids for government contracts, six years after the contracts end.

Every year, Boatman goes through the master list to identify boxes that can be destroyed.

Letters are sent to the departments and county attorney seeking permission. After it’s granted, Boatman’s crew verifies it a third time before turning them over to a contractor for destruction.

This year, 1,100 boxes are on “death row,” as county information officer David Rose put it.

But more are always waiting to take their place. Through mid-November, Boatman had received 3,022 boxes of new records for storage.

The volume has made microfilming a useful alternative – the originals can then be destroyed. But it’s a catch-up game. The department recently finished microfilming jail medical records through 2000 and will start on 2001 soon, Boatman said.

Some things defy new technology, such as group photos of commissioners dating back 20 years.

The framed portrait-style pictures – of Charlie Meier, Marcy Morrison, Gary Shupp, Jim Campbell, Loren Whittemore, Jeri Howells, Chuck Brown and Ed Jones – haven’t seen the light of day since they were stored.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” Boatman said.

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Contact the writer: 636-0238 or pam.zubeck@gazettedev.gazette.com

With the wreckage of an F-18 military jet seen at background left, a home burns after the fighter plane crashed into a San Diego residential neighborhood Monday, Dec. 8, 2008. Photo by (AP Photo/Matt Rose)