From its early history in the 1870s, the Seward Cemetery has recorded the passing of those buried within its fences.
Names, dates, plot locations were neatly recorded into large volumes that were then stashed away in a large vault at the cemetery. The pages of the books were filled. Shelves were filled with books.
At some point, the Seward Cemetery became the holder of records for other cemeteries in the Seward area, which were added to a five-foot-tall, 37-inch-wide metal safe in the cemetery building.
In 1991, the Seward Genealogical Society compiled and published the lists in a book.
Over the years, the city has transferred the information from the books to digital format, and though they will not trash the books, they don’t need a safe to keep them anymore.
“It is a big old hunk of iron,” Seward City Clerk and Human Resources Director Derek Bargmann said of the safe.
“This does not have a purpose for any other department,” he said.
But it is functional and the combinations are in hand.
His best guess is the city acquired the safe after it took control of the records, which the Nebraska Historical Society website about cemeteries indicates happened around 1948.
The Seward City Council recently approved it among seven items it is now “surplussing” by listing them in an online Purple Wave Auction this spring.
The company helps the city and other government entities market and price the equipment for sale before it is included in a catalog marketed via social media. The auction helps to get the best price whether they are buying or selling, and the auction company comes to photograph items and write descriptions.
The city – like Seward County – utilizes Purple Wave to sell and occasionally buy used heavy equipment like pick up trucks, dump trucks or trailers.
The city often gathers used street signs – or those with spelling errors that are not posted – for surplus sales, and those sell quickly, Bargmann said. The last time they sold signs they had between 80 and 90 to sell.
The safe may be one of the odder items the city has listed.
“It will find a good home somewhere,” Bargmann said after the council approved plans to sell the metal safe that features shelves and cubbies and a small safe-within-the-safe at the bottom where they must have kept something special.
“I’m really fascinated to see who bids on this and where it goes,” he said.
Bargmann said it is interesting to see what other people find interesting, recalling the gentleman who traveled from North Dakota to buy an old mower the city had deemed junk.
Seward County Roads Superintendent Jon Regnier said the county has also sold items with Purple Wave.
“Most of the stuff we sell is still usable and practical,” he said.
But some time ago, the county sold an old Allis Chalmers tractor cab and chassis it had purchased to harvest its engine. The tires were also gone by then.
“We actually had people begging us to sell this because they wanted it,” Regnier said.
In fact, the tractor they used the engine in was eventually auctioned off some time before the old cab and chassis and the buyer expressed interest in the parts, too.
As with the city, the money from the auction goes back into their respective accounts.
