Telling the story of Othello

Town's history on display at community museum

OTHELLO — The thing in the Othello Community Museum that impresses Bill Morris the most isn't actually on display.

Instead, it's the filing cabinet hidden away in the backroom.

Morris, the president of the Othello Community Museum, explains — the filing cabinet has only recently been organized, even though the museum itself has been open since the early 1970s. It's only been lately that he's able to look through the paperwork and find things exactly where they belong.

"We've concentrated on a record of Othello itself," museum volunteer and photograph archivist Gladys Para explained, noting that the town has a short history, having been incorporated in 1910. The first major exhibits have to do with the railroads and the irrigation of the Othello area, she said.

The museum was organized as a non-profit corporation and opened first as a museum and arts center in the 1970s.

"We had reader plays, concerts and we had exhibits of antiques, quilts and that kind of stuff just to attract the public," Para remembered.

A number of theater chairs were purchased, and several volunteers personally recovered each chair with velvet, a row of which remain in the museum, located at the corner of Third Avenue and Larch Street.

"You can imagine that whole room filled with gorgeously recovered chairs," Para said. "Boy, were we ever proud."

As the artifacts accumulated, the building reincorporated as only a museum in the late 1970s. It is operated entirely by volunteers.

"It's easier for volunteers to administer one concept, and our town has always been fluid," Para explained of the reasons for the change to a total museum. "The artists, the musicians and the actors were not as numerous as the historians."

Originally set in one small room, in the course of changing over, the building also began to expand. At the time, Morris remembered, most of the items in the building were on loan.

"When we made the change to expand, we requested that the people come and pick up what they had loaned to us," Morris remembered. There were a lot of old couches, pianos and stoves that couldn't be touched, sat on or played. "It was easy to do, because as soon we told people to come and get it, they said, 'You can have it.'"

The rest of the velvet-covered theater chairs were donated to the stockyards in Moses Lake, which burnt down soon after, Morris remembered.

A bird collection was donated as a permanent gift. Morris said it is probably the only non-local exhibit, but captures the biggest draw.

"When we opened up Saturday, we had four kids waiting to get in," he said. "The first place they go to, is that corner over there to see the birds … You can't get rid of it, that's where all the kids go. It's a good display."

The museum also includes Mount St. Helens ash, a display of all the local branding iron brands, old newspaper clippings and the box where room keys were kept from the first hotel in town. There's a section that is all about the post office, one about farm equipment, another about the kitchen and numerous newspaper clippings of historical events in Othello.

One display is full of old glass bottles that were gathered by collectors up and down the railroad. They got tossed off trains and wagons, and "you find a lot of those in old outdoor toilets," Morris added.

The museum itself is located in what used to be the Presbyterian church, the very first church to be built in Othello.

The museum is open Saturdays from 1 to 5 p.m. June through September. It is also open by appointment for special groups.

"The typical reaction, the first statement that they always make is, 'I've been here for 20 years and I haven't been in the place,'" Morris said of those people who set foot within the museum.

"Then we get people who return, who used to live in Othello long ago, and they are extremely impressed," Para added. "They think it's so great we've got all of our town put together in here, all of our memories and stuff."