Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Post Falls Museum in transition


The Post Falls Museum, run by the Post Falls Historical Society, has been housed in numerous temporary locations over the years, including its current home along Fourth Avenue. 
 (File/ / The Spokesman-Review)

Post Falls resident John Wesley Conaway was awarded a Medal of Honor in 1894, issued by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, for his bravery during the Civil War.

A bus driver remembered as Mr. Montague drove local schoolchildren to Drug Chapin’s for ice cream the last day of school, a building that now houses the Parks and Recreation Department.

Mary Long Eisenhaur was everyone’s mother, a beloved home economics teacher who taught generations of children. In her honor, the Old Presbyterian Church will be naming its kitchen Mrs. E’s.

These tidbits of history are stored in the Post Falls Museum, a modest house just south of City Hall that contains eight rooms of antiques, black and white photographs, oral history tapes, artifacts, newspapers and public records.

When Post Falls constructs its new City Hall complex in the near – but unspecified – future, the museum will have to move from the city building it currently occupies.

For a year now, the Post Falls Historical Society has been searching unsuccessfully for a permanent home for its museum. The group hopes to get input from business leaders and the public at its meeting this Wednesday on the location of the museum – or if it should exist at all.

“It’s really up to the citizens of the community,” said Kim Brown, past president of the society.

For her part, a museum is an essential part of a city.

“We feel local history is something that should be taught, and a museum is a perfect place to share the story,” Brown said. “It’s a matter of civic pride.”

Even in a rapidly growing town that sees about 1,000 new residents every year, a museum is relevant, Brown said. By providing a link between old and new residents, she explained, “history can actually integrate your population.”

The museum is open from April to September, and by appointment during the off-season. It has been in its current location on Fourth Avenue since 2003 and was in a trailer on Fifth Avenue and Frederick Street before that. Until 1998, the museum existed at various times in the basements of the historical society’s presidents, in storage at the school district and in temporary displays around the city.

The challenge facing Post Falls and other small cities that want a museum is that people believe other things are more important, said Ken Swanson, administrator of the Idaho State Historical Museum and Historic Sites.

“The problem is,” Swanson said, “how much is your past worth?”

Beyond creating a sense of community and educating schoolchildren, Swanson said, a museum can produce an economic benefit for its city.

Today’s travelers are older, wealthier and more educated than in the past, he said, and 60 percent of them want to stop at museums and historic sites on the way to their destination.

“They’re willing to spend money,” Swanson said. “Lots of it.”

If a museum can pull tourists off the road and entertain them, those tourists will also frequent neighboring businesses, restaurants and lodgings, Swanson said.

In order to do that, though, the museum must be near a highway in an easily accessible location, he said. It should also be more than a collection of antiques on shelves, he added.

“If you don’t have quality, you aren’t going to get return visitors,” Swanson said, nor will you have a positive reputation.

“This is going to be added value to the community all around,” said Swanson, who has been in the museum business for 30 years. “But it’s not going to come cheap.”

Post Falls readers of The Spokesman-Review who were asked by e-mail their opinion of the museum gave varying responses.

Chad Witherwax wrote: “I think that preserving our area’s history is important, but I don’t know that it’s fiscally responsible or feasible for every town to have its own museum.” He suggested that because timber-based towns along the Spokane River are similar, a regional museum could be created.

Rob Baxter wrote that the museum should educate local schoolchildren on the history of the city. “For adults, I see it more as a tourist attraction,” Baxter said, but added that he doesn’t foresee visitors forgoing water or snow sports to visit the museum. The Museum of Northern Idaho in downtown Coeur d’Alene is in a better location for tourists, he noted.

Helen Radsiff, unlike the previous respondents, has visited the museum. She said its role is important in the community. “A sense of history perhaps comes with age and perspective, at least for me” Radsiff wrote. “I am so interested in how those hardy souls made a life in the West and started new communities; I believe it should be preserved for the next generations who will ultimately (hopefully) want to know how it all happened.”

Brown, of the historical society, hopes people bring their thoughts and suggestions to the meeting.

Even if the community decides not to have a museum now, Brown said, the society will continue with its other projects – doing photograph preservation and oral histories, as well as nominating local sites for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.

Still, Mary Schell, a museum volunteer and contributor who has lived in Post Falls for 80-some years, is concerned about the future.

“I lay awake nights wondering about it,” said Schell, who created the museum’s schoolroom and whose late husband donated his army uniform from WWII. “I hate to think it’ll get stuffed away someplace.”