Chelan Museum volunteers dust off new historic photos and maps

Inside the Chelan Historical Society Museum. Photo courtesy: Chelan Museum.

Community volunteers gathered Thursday in the back board room of the Lake Chelan Historical Society Museum at 204 East Woodin Ave., to begin a two month process of browsing over and dusting off pieces of Chelan Valley history.

The museum has closed for the next two months, "To conduct an inventory and revitalize exhibits, while organizing a group of five oversized file cabinets full of maps, photographs, drawings and documents that haven't been looked at for a long time," said Museum Director Ron McGaughey. "We've got like over 40,000 photographs, some of them go back to the turn of the century and before. The newspaper, The Chelan Leader and Mirror began in 1891 and we're in the process of digitizing those."

Once what’s now in file folders gets archived, you’ll be able to see the items on the Washington State Archives website.

View the Chelan Valley treasure trove first hand once the museum opens again on March 5.

"We have a large map to the left, kinda shows the lake (Lake Chelan) as a whole, and what happened where," McGaughey shared. "A timeline from 1872 to 1980."

An original painted advertising show drop that used to hang decades ago at the Ruby Theatre is McGaughey's favorite piece of preserved history. It was presented to audiences before the feature movie began and then rolled up to reveal the film screen.

Inviting local citizens and visitors to the museum once it reopens, McGaughey acknowledged that history is ever-changing stories and the people that have lived here.

"Chelan Museum is a small and vibrant museum dedicated to preserving and sharing the stories of our town and region," says a post on the museum's Facebook page. "Operated by the Lake Chelan Historical Society as a historical and cultural center for the Lake Chelan Valley."