1902 REPORT OF GRAND JURY

CRAMLET

Posted By: Volunteer - Rich Lowe
Date: 8/19/2003 at 15:43:21

FIRST ANNUAL VAN BUREN COUNTY FINANCIAL REPORT – 1902 - pages 27-28

REPORT OF GRAND JURY.

At the March Term, 1902, of the District Court of Van Buren County, Iowa.

In the matter of the condition of the Jail and other County Buildings.

0n March 9th the Jury in a body inspected the Jail, the Count y Farm and the Court House proper, and beg to report:

1st. The Jail is situated in as, suitable a place and kept as cleanly and securely as seems possible. The floor being low and ventilation poor makes of the prison anything but a health resort.

2nd. The County Farm presents a contrast of appearances. The insane department being situated in a building which is both beautiful and convenient, affords the attendants a good opportunity to give and the patients therefore receive the best possible care at the least public expense.

Contrasted with this are the poor quarters and the living apartments of the steward. The buildings in which these are situated are of the worst arrangement for comfort as well as safety and the wonder is that from fire exposure or other calamity against which the buildings afford such slight protection we have not been visited with some such misfortune as that of which we read almost daily.

3rd. We notice in the Court House building proper that the most important office appartment [sic] is the auditor's. In that office the cramped arrangement requires the original road records as well as other papers of great value to be placed in pine receptacles outside the vault. The vault itself is of uncertain security against fire, and in this vault are the transfer records of all the land in the county as well as all other records required to be kept by the auditor.

In the case of fire it, would destroy without question everything now kept outside the vault and possibly such as are deposited therein and the least possibly injury done the
public would be in our judgment far greater than prudence warrants risking, and lack of room makes of the office a store house of valuable things without the means of methodical filing and preserving them.

R. C. CRAMLET,
Foreman.