A massive county land-records book missing for nearly three decades turned up in a Wheaton City Hall annex basement and is back where it belongs.

DuPage County Recorder of Deeds Liz Chaplin held a "Welcome Home" celebration Friday, Aug. 21, at her Wheaton office after Wheaton residents Nancy and John Flannery discovered Plat Book No. 2 while inventorying items stored beneath the annex. The volume, roughly 2 feet by 2 feet, contains DuPage County land records from 1868 to 1873, including a page showing the original parcel for the downtown Wheaton courthouse site.

Nancy Flannery found the book while serving as a court-appointed receiver in a legal case the state attorney general filed against the Wheaton Historic Preservation Council. She was cataloging thousands of the council's items stored in the basement when she came across the oversized volume.

"I knew this thing had to be rescued. It had to be taken out," Nancy Flannery said at the Aug. 21 event, according to the Daily Herald.

Former recorder Rick Carney, who served from 1984 to 2004, had lent the book to the Wheaton Historic Preservation Council for an exhibit. It never came back.

A DuPage County judge earlier in 2026 granted permission to return it to the recorder's office.

Chaplin said the book is one piece of a larger puzzle. Her office oversees roughly 600 plat books documenting land across DuPage County, and several remain unaccounted for. She told the Daily Herald the county is still missing plat books 15 through 20, which date to the 19th century. The DuPage County Recorder's Office Facebook page notes the office is also searching for Grantor/Grantee Index Books 15 through 20.

The missing volumes carry local legend. According to the recorder's office, after a countywide vote moved the county seat from Naperville to Wheaton, Naperville refused to hand over the records. The DuPage County sheriff and a group of Civil War veterans entered the Naperville courthouse through an unlocked window one night and loaded records onto wagons bound for Wheaton. Several boxes fell off during the ride, were taken to Chicago for safekeeping and destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

DuPage County Board member Dawn DeSart, who also sits on the DuPage County History Museum Foundation board, joined Chaplin at the celebration to honor the Flannerys.

Chaplin said the book will eventually be restored. No timeline for the restoration or public viewing has been announced.