Washington County Historical Society

A nonprofit organization

106 donors

Gateway to Minnesota History


On April 11, 1934, approximately seventy-five residents of the county gathered at the Stillwater Public Library to officially form the Washington County Historical Society to investigate and study the history of the County of Washington and the State of Minnesota and provide for the collection, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge and information for future generations. 

Today, WCHS owns and operates three sites which are all found on the National Register of Historic Places.  The first of these, the Warden's House Museum in downtown Stillwater, has been the Historical Society's headquarters since 1941.  WCHS has also converted the Hay Lake Schoolhouse and Johannes Erickson Log Home near Scandia, MN into museums.   WCHS also does the programming for the Eder School House at the Oakdale Nature Center. These sites have allowed us to share our local history with hundreds of thousands of school children, researchers, and day-trippers over the last 80 years...but we're about to add a new tool to our educational work-belt...

In mid-2019-2020 WCHS will be opening a brand new Washington County Heritage Center on Greeley Street in Stillwater.  This state-of-the-art museum will be able to host much larger audiences than our current facilities while at the same time allowing us to better store and preserve the almost 100,000 artifacts in our collection.  By reaching specific industry standards in our renovation project - we will be able to attract travelling exhibits from not only local organizations such as the Minnesota Historical Society, but also national exhibits from the Smithsonian.

Your gifts and donations are absolutely vital for the success of this project.

 Currently the WCHS is the ONLY county historical society in Minnesota to receive no assistance from their county!!

Thank you for visiting this page and we greatly appreciate any Donation you make today.


If we don't preserve our own history, who will...? 

Organization Data

Summary

Organization name

Washington County Historical Society

Tax id (EIN)

41-6038333

Categories

Arts & Culture

Address

PO Box 167
Stillwater, MN 55082

Phone

651-439-5956

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