The keepers of Tacoma’s history plan move to ‘cool and special’ new digs
The Tacoma Historical Society is temporarily closing its doors to the public as it gears up to relocate to a bigger and more modern space in the city’s museum district.
Historical society managing director Jessica Smith said the organization is packing up for the move about a mile-and-a-half away to a location near the University of Washington Tacoma campus and the Washington State History Museum. A nearly $2 million grant from the state provides the funding. Smith estimates that the historical society’s museum will reopen to the public around September.
The organization’s new home base will be at 2122 Commerce St. The historical society has been operating out of a space near Wright Park since 2020, but Smith said it has not had a permanent home since it was first founded in 1990.
“It’ll be the first time that the Tacoma Historical Society has owned its own space, its own home,” she told The News Tribune.
The historical society’s current home base is “more off the beaten path,” Smith said, making it hard for interested visitors to find it or for passersby to stumble upon it and go inside. The new building is located along the Prairie Line – the now-retired western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Smith said part of the rail line remains in front of the building, which is a historic landmark built in 1907.
“In the inside it has been renovated and restored, but it has the original timber column in it,” Smith said. “It’s really cool and special that our permanent home is going to be in this historic space.”
The new building will include a fully climate-controlled space that will be sealed off from the building’s public-facing museum to protect the roughly 16,000 historical items the organization has in its collection. It’ll include a research library for visitors, room for monthly programming and speaker events, a rotating exhibit space and a permanent exhibit about the city’s history.
Smith said the group plans to begin the move to the new location around the end of May and be ready to open around Septembe. In the meantime, its regular programming like the annual historic homes tour will take place as scheduled: May 2 and 3.
To learn more about the Tacoma Historical Society and follow along with the process of the move, visit tacomahistory.org.
