Clay County Clerk of Court and Comptroller Tara Green, her staff, and some very special guests experienced a bittersweet gathering last week. Inside the office’s Recording Department at the Clay County Courthouse is a vault where some of our county’s most important records are stored along with historical displays and much more. The newly renovated Recording Department vault was officially reopened and dedicated as the Jewel Baskin Vault, in honor of the office’s long-time employee and department manager Jewel Baskin. Jewel passed away suddenly in 2024 while on a church mission trip to Africa.
This project, which Baskin envisioned and spoke of often to colleagues, became a reality recently to honor Jewel’s 38-years of community service. With new carpet, fresh paint, cleaned and rearranged furniture, and up-cycled display cabinets, the vault space more broadly benefits the Recording Department’s many customers, all courthouse employees, and the Clerk’s many tour program visitors. Before her untimely passing last year, Baskin herself started the painstaking process of inventorying and reorganizing about fifty years worth of stored documents, files, and maps inside the original vault space. With the recent reopening, her wish for real transformation came full circle, and all involved know she would be proud to see the project completed.
Jewel Baskin’s family members and coworkers attended the unveiling of the memorial plaque and spent time checking out the upgraded space and visiting with Jewel’s coworkers who miss her greatly. Many employees and vendors came together to work on this renovation project for the last three months and Clerk Green thanks all of them for their hard work.
The Jewel Baskin Vault is open any time the Clay County Courthouse is open to the public (Mon-Fri, 8am-5pm) and citizens are encouraged to stop by the Recording Department to check it out. While there, you can also learn more about available Clerk’s Office services like applying for passports, making record requests, signing up for property fraud alerts, and viewing their Historical Archives Center displays.
