Oct. 1, 2026 marked the official launch of Open Access, the Maine State Archives (MSA) new online platform for publicly accessible, digitized and born-digital public records. Open Access is the public-facing side of a strategic effort to maintain a digital preservation system for records of Maine state government. which ensures the long-term preservation and accessibility of state records that are archival or subject to long-term retention.

MSA’s collections span five centuries from the 1639 royal land grant to Sir Ferdinand Gorges to the 2024 papers of the Lewiston Tragedy Commission. One section of the site is devoted to Maine history before statehood, highlighting important records such as Revolutionary War land grants and the Rolls and Rosters Book of Orders for the 8th Division of the Maine Militia. The records of Maine’s involvement in the Civil War are extensive.

Open Access currently holds just over 100,000 imaged records so far. Content will be continuously expanded as more and more collections are imaged.

“With more than 8 miles of documents in the Archives’ care, there is a long way to go to digitize them all, but it’s a great start,” said Maine State Archivist Christian Cotz. “We’re excited to continue to add records to the platform and provide Mainers from students to researchers with even more to discover each time they visit the site.”

The platform can be accessed at https://digitalarchives.maine.gov or from the Maine State Archives section of the Secretary of State website. Pay a visit to the site and enter “Gorham” in the search bar; you never know what local history you might discover!