The first Perm scientific archival commission was established in 1888. It consisted of local fans of antiquities, which took up the selection of documents of various provincial institutions for permanent storage and published the most valuable documents. Doctor and history buff Vasily Nikiforovich Shishonko was the first chairman of archival commission. Aleksandr Alekseevich Dmitriev professional historian and author of books about Perm was a commission secretary.
After the revolution in 1919 archival service was established. All work was directed to search and save documents about pre-revolutionary organizations and institutions. In 1922 were formed 159 funds. From the beginning of 1926 archive had been becoming into the scientific-research institution caused by developing technical processing of documents. In 1927 was opened the first reading room where students and lecturers studied archival documents. In June 1930, Perm district archive was transformed into the city archive. After formation of Perm Region in October 1938, archive was reorganized into two separate institutions - Historical Archive and Archive of the October Revolution. In November 1940, the archives were united in the State Archive of the Molotov region with departments of pre-revolutionary and secret funds, funds of the October revolution and socialist construction, scientific-reference literature and a reading room. In 1943 the department of using archival documents was added.
During the World War II, the main task of the archive employees was to ensure safety of the documents including funds evacuated from the Central State Archive of the October Revolution. Since 1945 GAMO was included in the research institutions of the USSR.
In 1966 archive moved to new building. From that moment began the systematic acquisition of archive documents of institutions, organizations, enterprises, interesting persons. Archive had being actively engaged in publishing activities. Archive’s staff participated in the development of a textbook "The History of the Urals" for students.
In the 1990s after changes in state role of archives in the society changed. The number of different inquiries was growing with each passing day. Every day about 60-70 people came to the archive for information about the award, work experience and so on.
In March 2004, was taken into operation a new archive building (annexe). It is 1.5 the size of their old one. The new archive building is equipped with modern facilities, including «floating» shelves, air conditioning, refrigerated cupboards for the media documents and etc. In December 2006, the number of storage units in archive exceeded one million, and currently it continues to accept documents for permanent storage.
August 25, 2009 the archive got an additional 2-storey building for the storage of documents. The estimated capacity of the selected premises was 450-500 thousand units.
