Happening Soon: Rainier Oregon Historical Museum ready to break ground

Being able to break ground on the new Rainier Oregon Historical Museum (ROHM) is a culmination of eight long years of hard work.

There will be a groundbreaking and fundraising event for the new ROHM located at 700 West A St. in Rainier, on May 6, at 1:30 p.m. Betsy Johnson will be Master of Ceremonies for the occasion, and Senator Suzanne Weber will be among several guest speakers. The event will be followed by a reception at the Rainier Senior Center.

Our current nine-member board has put in countless hours of fundraising along with our member volunteers. Our Vice-President, Duane Bernard, is to be commended on his tireless work as our project manager in working to get the necessary permits and working with Lower Columbia Engineering of St. Helens and our contractor, Matt Olson of Camas, WA.

In 2015 we started our museum around Marjorie Clark’s dining room table with six members. Three of our founding members are still on our board: Kay Heflin, President; Martha Van Natta, Treasurer; and Mike Clark, Historian and Director.

In 2018 we began fundraising and writing grants to grow our building fund. March 7th, when the 2024 Oregon State Special Legislative Session passed the funding of our $500,000 CREF grant, a generous donor, guaranteed a large donation to our building fund, which has made the groundbreaking ceremony on Monday, May 6, a reality. We continue to raise funds to finish our museum. Our new museum will provide much needed space to display our collection.

We are currently storing several items off-site because we have no room to display them. The current location inside the Rainier City Hall is only 900 square feet and limits what can be displayed. The new museum will provide a space for a research/library center, office computer room with space for cataloging, multipurpose meeting room, lobby entrance with gift shop and a much larger exhibit area. It will give us room to have historical presentations and bring in students to learn about the important history of Rainier and surrounding areas.

We expect our new location will bring in revenue to our community and will attract visitors to our museum as they travel to the coast and travel down the I-5 corridor. The new Rainier Oregon Historical Museum will be located at 700 West A Street, which is just off Highway 30 and close to Rainier’s city park. We anticipate that our museum will be completed in the summer of 2025.

Our new museum will be an important asset to our town and one our residents will be proud of. We also couldn’t have done this without our community’s continued support.