(The Beatles' "Love Me Do" plays) - This is the bill for the Beatles performance in 1964, when they came to Indianapolis.

The receipts: coliseum 51,000 had to pay 25,000 Total bill, 55,000 minus the tax.

- This is the first constitution of 1816, and the entire piece is it, it's in its original binding and original paper.

Someone's made a poor repair here.

- [Narrator] Beatles memorabilia and the state's constitution are just two examples of items packed away in Indiana's official basement, if you will, the state archives.

- [Jerry] You can walk over here and you can see that all the aisles are pretty crowded.

- [Narrator] Indiana's recorded history.

Most of it in the form of legal documents, bound volumes, and reams of paper, comes to this cramped basement to grow old.

- What we have here are Civil War Muster rolls.

On these rolls, you pull out the folders.

You can see in original handwriting, they actually took attendance after every battle or every morning or every afternoon.

- Jerry Handfield sits at the top of this heap.

He's Indiana's official archivist and has spent years of his life documenting Hoosier history and the latest in a long line of Indiana historians who have had the foresight and wherewithal to collect everything.

Included in the Indiana archives are every single bill passed through our legislature.

Now, these are the actual laws.

- These are the actual laws passed by the legislature in 1839.

- [Dave] All handwritten of course.

- [Narrator] And Jerry's in charge of the mother of all Indiana law, the constitutions.

That's right, constitutions, plural.

There are two of them, and for reasons the federal government should take note, - We have two constitutions because the first one allowed the state to go into debt to build things, and they decided in 1850 to meet and pass another constitution, which would not allow the state to go into debt.

- Historians have beautifully cataloged the culprit for Indiana's early constitutional stumble.

- We have hundreds and hundreds of boxes on the history of the Wabash and Erie Canal and the all the money that we poured into the Wabash and Erie Canal is what bankrupted the state of Indiana in the 1830s and forties.

- [Narrator] Nothing, not even historical blemishes escaped the archivist eye.

- Okay, Dave, what we have here are the sealed prison records of Charles Manson.

Charles Manson spent some time at the boys school in Indiana.

- [Narrator] This is mass killer Charlie Manson in later years when after his reformation, he left Indiana to become a family man.

- We don't keep all prisoner's records because if we did, we'd have to build a whole new archives building.

- [Narrator] They don't leave much room for Indiana's lawless.

Since the state archives has to collect the ever-growing mountain of paperwork generated by Indiana's lawmakers.

All state documents go there.

Chances are, if it was written on taxpayer's paper, it's in the archives.

- Right up here, we have a box that contains the original correspondence of governors from 1800 to 1840.

In this box, we have all the papers from the first 40 years of governors in the state of Indiana - In this small amount of space right here?

- In this small amount of space.

And here we have the last 40 years of governor's papers.

- So what we just saw in that small box was the first 40 years, and this represents approximately the last 40 years, - Some of the last 40 years.

This isn't all of it, but this is a good segment of it.

- Some of these documents are presently sealed, but all documents in the archives are declassified after 75 years.

This is necessary for historical reasons.

- It's very important because what happens otherwise in other governments, they keep records secret for years and years and years, and they cover up certain actions of the government.

Public records, the fact that they're open and accessible to people, whether it's you or some genealogist or whoever it is, ensures that government employees will not abuse their privileges of their power.

- [Narrator] Perhaps the best example of the historical and legal importance of the Indiana State Archives is here in this section where they keep all Hoosier veteran World War II and Korean War discharges.

In the 1970s, a fire destroyed all the federal records in St. Louis.

The Indiana State Archives is the only place Hoosier veterans can prove they served and thus be eligible for pension and benefits.

- And so we get many calls a day from people wanting proof that this person was a veteran and therefore entitled to legal benefits, legal rights.

- [Narrator] This is precisely why a small staff at the archives take such meticulous care of these precious documents.

They're fighting a losing battle against natural decay.

After all, things in here will only get older.

- And this is what we call burning documents.

These documents are literally burning up into brittle tiny pieces of dust.

(timer beeps) - [Narrator] Right now, only a small fraction of the Indiana State archives kept in this dank basement is climate controlled or equipped with immediate fire protection.

Jerry still winces when he walks underneath water and steam pipes.

(water trickles) Down here priceless Hoosier history is always threatened.

As far as the future is concerned.

Jerry sees the day when archival material will be stored electronically.

Actually, most of our current documentation already exists on disc or some other computer software.

This is a far cry from Indiana's first recorded bits of history.

These are the original diaries kept by pioneering surveyors who first stepped foot on soil that is now called Indiana.

- Of course, they didn't have any mile posts or anything else to go by, so they used trees and streams, creeks.

Here's to a walnut tree, 18 inches in diameter.

- [Narrator] Jerry Handfield regrets that he has but one life to give his country for the collecting of old bound volumes and crumbling letterhead, stationary.

- [Jerry] What you see in our system in the United States is that public records and documents play a vital role in the preservation of democracy and our way of life, because every government generates documents, but only in the United States do we have public access to those records.

- [Announcer] For more Across Indiana stories go to wfyi.org/acrossindiana