Cowlitz County Historical Society

Please come in through February 2024 for our Lunar New Year scavenger hunt. Kids and adults alike can challenge themselves to find all 13 plush zodiac animals hiding throughout the museum!

Welcome to the Cowlitz County Historical Museum

The museum collects, preserves, and interprets information and artifacts that tell the story of Cowlitz County. The Cowlitz County Historical Museum operates as a partnership between Cowlitz County and the Cowlitz County Historical Society. Formed in 1949, the Society began operating a museum in a space provided by Cowlitz County in 1953. In 1979, the museum relocated to its current location on Allen Street. Museum staff are a combination of Historical Society and County employees. This public-private partnership has benefited our community by making the Cowlitz County Historical Museum an attraction providing quality exhibits, archival research facilities, and engaging educational and public programming.

Members take pride in the knowledge that they are the key to the museum’s
ongoing mission of collecting, preserving and interpreting our history.

Become a Member Today!

Membership includes:

· Subscription to the Cowlitz Historical Quarterly

· Receive the Society’s Newsletters

· 10% discount on all items in our Museum Store

· Invitation to the annual membership meeting with dinner provided

· 20% discount on custom printed photos from our collection

A Note from the Director

Welcome to the Cowlitz County Historical Museum! Cowlitz County is a great place to live, with easy access to the ocean, Mount St. Helens, and Portland. Nestled amidst forests and rivers with a mix of rural and urban settings, Cowlitz County provides the best of all worlds. Our county has a rich history tied to the land and its natural resources. From being the “Smelt Capital of the World” to some of the richest groves of old growth Douglas Fir, natural resources play a significant role in our past and present. Our permanent exhibition, “Cowlitz Encounters,” is regionally and nationally awarded and shares the history of our county, from its first inhabitants, the Cowlitz People, to American settlement, and the growth of the timber industry, both resource extraction and timber products processing. We have over 35,000 objects in our collections and nearly one million images in our archives. These resources are available for research, academic study, and exhibition. I invite you to visit the Cowlitz County Historical Museum where we keep history alive!

~ Joseph Govednik, Museum Director

We are deeply grateful for the responses and gifts we received for our 2023 Annual Fund Drive so far. To make contributing more accessible, this year we are introducing online donations. You pay use the form above to donate via Donorbox.org to the Museum. We thank you for your support.