Meeting Minutes and Reports
The first page of meeting minutes on January 11th, 1916 of the Board of Commissioners of Public Grounds and Buildings.
The second page of meeting minutes on January 11th, 1916 which included a letter about how they would be taking possession of a few houses.
The Third page of meeting minutes of January 11th, 1916, which talked about the sale of several buildings inside the Eighth Ward that were sold and how much money had been made from them.
The first page of minutes of the meeting of the Board of Commissioners of Public Grounds and Buildings on March 8th, 1916.
The sixth page of minutes on March 8th, 1916. A report was presented saying that buildings had been taken over in the name of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
The seventh page of meeting minutes of March 8th, 1916, listing the properties, owners, and date of possession by the State.
The eighth page of meeting minutes of march 8th 1916 finished listing the properties and summarized how many properties had been taken control of, and how many were left, along with how much money had been paid.
The first page of the meeting minutes of the Board of Commissioners of Public Grounds and Buildings on October 25th, 1916.
The second page of the meeting minutes of October 25th, 1916 starts a letter from the Capitol Park Extension Commission.
The third page of meeting minutes talks about a hotel that had been taken possession of but recommends that the owner be allowed to stay until the license expires March 1917. The rest of the page lists more houses that had been taken possession of.
The fourth page of meeting minutes lists more houses but gives specifics as to how they were obtained and if the owners appealed the decision by the State to take the land.
The fifth page of the meeting minutes continues the list of houses from the previous page.
The first-page fo the report started to say who was on the committe and about how their job was to oversee the extension along with a few requirements.
The second page continued to say who had been appointed and then talked about how much money they had to work along with details about the Eighth Ward, like how many buildings there were.
The third page of the report talked about how they started to buy properties and how the properties were acquired.
The fourth page talked about how the committee was finished on June 1st, 1917 since that was the fixed date for it to end and everything was turned over to the proper authorities.
The final page talks about how they approved the plan of the architects. The original date of the document was originally August 28th, 1917, but the record was later dated the 1920 date.
This group of documents all outline when specific properties in the Eighth Ward were taken possession of by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The minute's list of examples of properties they gave notice to. Not everyone was willing to sell their property so some of the cases had to go to court to be settled. They are separated into lists on how they took possession of the properties in documents, like the minutes of March 8th, 1916 and October 25th, 1916. Some of them were also sold later on for the building materials like bricks and stones. The January 11th minuets, in particular, mention this and how much money the State and made from the properties. March 8th, 1915 also lists how much had been paid so far, and how much was left in the budget to acquire the rest of the properties. In addition, the report gives an overview of what had happened in the past several years. These documents help to show an important step in the process of the destruction of the Eighth Ward. Without these properties, work could not have continued. They also help to illustrate how people were forced from their homes and communities, which helps to show how this negatively affected the resident's lives.