North Clark Historical Museum

About this museum

The north end of Clark County, Washington is a different world from the suburban sprawl of Vancouver. Here, the landscape opens into agricultural bottomlands, forested foothills, and small communities that have maintained their rural character even as growth has pushed steadily up from the Columbia River. The North Clark Historical Museum in Amboy serves as the cultural anchor of this upper county community - the place where the agricultural, industrial, and domestic history of a rural Washington county is preserved against the pressure of change that threatens small - town institutions everywhere.The museum's collections cover the full range of Clark County's northern history: the homestead farms that cleared the forest in the late nineteenth century, the logging operations that defined the regional economy for decades, the small - town commercial life of communities like Amboy, Yacolt, and Chelatchie Prairie. Artifacts, photographs, oral history recordings, and documents together build a picture of a way of life that is genuinely historical - not so distant in time as to be inaccessible, but different enough from contemporary experience to require interpretation.The museum operates on Saturdays from noon to 4PM, a schedule that reflects the volunteer capacity of a community historical organization and creates a concentrated visiting experience in which the people staffing the museum are typically knowledgeable enthusiasts rather than professional interpreters. That informality is often the best thing about small regional history museums - the conversations that happen there don't happen in larger institutions.Admission is free. Located at 21416 Northeast 399th Street in Amboy, Washington - about an hour north of Portland - the North Clark Historical Museum is worth the drive for anyone interested in rural Pacific Northwest history or the particular character of Clark County's agricultural heritage. More information at northclarkhistoricalmuseum.org.