New Home for Personnel Records

The National Archives and Records Administration has found a new home for the millions of personnel records of people who have served in the military or worked for federal agencies. The agency announced Thursday that it has worked with the General Services Administration to lease a new "built-to-suit" facility in St. Louis to house such records.

The facility will replace the Military Personnel Records Center and a portion of the Civilian Personnel Records Center in the city. It will house the National Personnel Records Center, which contains 56 million personnel files of 20th century military veterans, and 25 million federal civilian personnel files dating from the early part of the century to the 1970s.

The Archives expects to respond to 1 million requests a year for access to the records, from people seeking to verify service, apply for benefits and conduct historical research. About 600 Archives employees will work at the new location.