Roma museum going digital to preserve historical artifacts
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Historical artifacts and photographs from Roma will soon be turned into digital formats.
It's all thanks to a partnership between the city and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.
For over a year, archivist Carlos Saenz has read thousands of words and dusted off countless artifacts. He's slowly piecing together Roma's history.
"It goes into detail on a lot of the subjects, sorry, a lot of the details of the lost history of Roma, which most people don't even know," Saenz said.
He was chosen to help the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston digitize artifacts from South Texas. He's focusing on documents and antiques from Roma that are over 100 years old.
Saenz says the most interesting person he's been documenting is Heinrich Portscheller. He built nearly all of Roma's historic buildings that are still standing today.
"And it wasn't just designing buildings, he also made his own bricks, so he was a Mason," Saenz said.
The project is a pretty big undertaking. Museum officials have already spent a year and a half on it, and it might take two more for everything to be online.
"If someone doesn't know where they come from, they won't know where they're going," Roma Assistant City Manager Alfonso Ramirez said.
It's an old saying, but still holds true.
That is why Ramirez says they've been dedicated to the project. He says learning about the international commerce that shaped the city has helped them carve their path today.
The museum in Houston is paying Saenz for his work, and there's no cost to the city. Saenz says he never thought he'd be working to preserve history the way he is.
"I just got filled with this hunger, like, I want to know more. I want to know why things are like this," Saenz said.
Once everything is digitally accessible worldwide, Saenz hopes others find that same hunger.
All the artifacts being digitized will be online.
Watch the video above for the full story.
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