Washington State Digital Archives

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The Washington State Digital Archives is a public archive in Cheney, Washington, that preserves electronic records from state and local government. It opened on October 4, 2004, and was the first state archive in the United States dedicated to keeping electronic records.

Location and building
- Address: 960 Washington Street, Cheney, on the Eastern Washington University campus.
- The archives share a two-story building with the Eastern Region Branch of the Washington State Archives. The building is named after Belle Reeves, the first woman to serve as Washington’s Secretary of State.
- It is part of the Office of the Secretary of State.

What it holds
- The archives preserve electronic records from state and local government agencies.
- The collection size is large: about 267 million records, with over 92 million available online.

History and milestones
- Planning began in 2000; the design started in 2002, and construction began in January 2003.
- The grand opening was October 4, 2004.
- The first records included marriage records from Chelan, Snohomish, and Spokane counties, plus Historic Census and Naturalization records.
- 2005: they preserved outgoing Governor Gary Locke’s website.
- 2007: partnered with the Library of Congress on the Multi-State Preservation Consortium.
- 2008: teamed up with Microsoft Research to enable keyword searching of audio files; by May 2017 there were about 30,000 searchable audio files.

Education and outreach
- The archives works with Eastern Washington University on internships, archive classes, and student research projects.
- A monthly feature called “Treasures of the Archives” highlights notable records.

Featured collections
- A. M. Kendrick Photograph Collection (c. 1890–1976)
- House of Representatives Committee Audio Meeting Recordings
- Spokane City Planning Department Expo ’74 Photographic Collection

Online access
- The archives’ materials are partially available online at digitalarchives.wa.gov. As of 2025, the collection includes 267 million preserved records, with more than 92 million searchable online.