Latah County, Idaho Records, 1888-1959

These records were moved to different storage areas within the library several times prior to processing, therefore any original order was destroyed. Following the description of duties of county officials outlined by Sydney Duncombe in his Handbook for County Officials in Idaho (10th edition, University of Idaho Bureau of Public Affairs Research, 1991) the records were organized by office.

The records of the auditor were divided into several sub-series, since the auditor also serves as clerk of the court, recorder, and clerk of the county commissioners. Included in the auditor's records are license records, bonds, reports, certificates of nomination, and forest protection charge lists. The bonds were originally bundled and their received order was not altered; during processing it was discovered that dates occasionally overlapped, and some small sections were interspersed among larger sections.

The clerk of the court records contain a district court fee book, a record of cases in Nez Perce County from 1883 to 1890 which appears to have been hand copied from the original books, district court calendars, and court stenographers shorthand notebooks for cases from 1893 to 1939. The stenographers' notebooks were divided into series by type of book used, which is also a chronological arrangement. In many cases the books were numbered, and this numerical arrangement was retained; unnumbered books are at the end of each series. Series I-III are in small notebooks, while the shorthand notes in series IV are on 8 1/2 x 14" sheets of paper which have been foldered by year. Some of the books are water damaged, and numbers in each series are lacking.

As recorder the auditor's records include 9 volumes of Land department abstracts which lists land by legal description and records details of any sales, chattel and crop mortgages, and estray notices which are handwritten notifications of livestock found on private property and requesting the owner to claim the animal(s).

The clerk of the county commission records include a jailers report of prisoners, bonds and election returns for road overseers, and road district inventories.

The second series contains the treasurer's records. These include 12 volumes of warrant registers, from 1888 to 1939, name indexes to the registers, quarterly statements and monthly reports, trial balance books, fish and game licenses issued, tax sale certificates which are also called delinquency certificates (the tax sale certificates, 1884-1912, are individual sheets of paper, the delinquency certificates, 1913-1917, are bound in volumes), and volumes titled Indexes to delinquent taxes which are indexes to the tax sale certificates. The series also includes six volumes of special property road tax records, 1902-1908 (1906 lacking). The final items in the series are miscellaneous papers which were discovered among the bank statements.

The final series contains the records of the assessor. Included are plat maps of Moscow arranged by addition, plat maps of small Latah county towns, lists of property belonging to Potlatch Lumber Company, John Vollmer, Edward Rutledge Timber Company, Northern Pacific Railway, and the Forest Development Company which was subject to assessment, taxpayer statement for property taxes, and a book of motor vehicle license fees collected.

In 1987 permission was received from the state archivist to discard approximately 20 cubic feet of redeemed warrants. Many remaining items were set aside for discard during processing. Included were records recording internal transactions between departments (e.g. auditors' requisitions to the treasurer), certified list of warrants to be issued, warrants, redeemed warrants, receipts, check registers bank deposit slips, bank statements and paid checks, duplicates of treasurer's reports, detail sheets of tax collector's reports, tax payer statements for property taxes except for 0 and 5 numbered years (Oregon State Archives record retention schedule recommendation), assessors rubber stamps, and several unused volumes of printed forms. This reduced the records by an additional 125 cubic feet.

Permission to discard the above material was requested from the state archivist. Following receipt of the permission the discard list will be sent to the Latah County Historical Society in case there are any items they feel would be useful for either research or exhibit purposes.

Records of the Kendrick State Bank which were deposited with the Clerk of the Court during dissolution hearings were removed and accessioned separately; these will become MG 384.