The future looks bright for preserving Sequim’s past. Officials with the Sequim Museum said three properties they received and sold helps them start a building fund for a new exhibit building next to the DeWitt Administration Center, 544 N. Sequim Ave.

“We’re excited to be moving forward,” said Museum Executive Director Judy Reandeau Stipe.

The new building is the final phase of bringing the administration and exhibit buildings closer to one another, museum volunteers said.

Funding came together thanks to land endowments from West End pioneer John Cowan and his wife Inez, which included two timber properties on Lake Ozette Road and off Highway 112, and a home in Port Angeles.

Friends and West End historians say Cowan felt history was important and should be preserved. Cowan died in 2000 and following Inez Cowan’s death in 2015, the properties went for sale in October and the two timber properties sold in December and the home in February 2016.

Reandeau Stipe arranged the sales and her commission was donated to the Sequim Museum and the net proceeds were split between the Sequim Museum and Forks Timber Museum. She said the Cowan family hasn’t disclosed the amount of the sales publicly and they choose to honor that.

Despite the distance between the Forks and Sequim communities, Reandeau Stipe said there’s a rich logging history between the communities.

Cowan lived on the Cowan Ranch next to the Hoko and Little Hoko rivers on Lake Ozette Road until his death. Reandeau Stipe lived on Hoko Camp by the Cowan Ranch because her father, Ray Reandeau, was a logger.

“I am so proud that I had the privilege to put together these real estate sales and donate my entire commission to the museum,” she said. “It was a huge thing in my life to have the Cowan Family trust in what I did.”

Prior to his death, Cowan donated a large collection to the Sequim Museum and the properties’ sales required that funds can only go towards new construction and/or preservation of buildings.

Sequim’s plan

Conceptual designs for the Sequim Museum’s exhibit building have been in the works for more than a decade, Reandeau Stipe said.

On the outside, the front facade will be all-natural wood with rustic red painted around the building.

Inside, planned permanent exhibits include a focus on local logging, farming, the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, Manis Mastodon, the new Columbian mammoth along with a reading room and tentatively art space.

Museum officials want to return to the organization’s roots concentrating on natural history, they said, which will include the mammoth skull found by Sequim Bay. Seattle’s Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture plans to permanently loan out the skull, Reandeau Stipe said.

Temporarily, the exhibit will be housed inside the administration building until the new exhibit building is constructed. Sequim Museum volunteers plan to have the temporary exhibit available for viewing with lessons for local children in April.

Museum treasurer Louie Rychlik said a new building will help preserve Sequim’s history and is the “best thing to ever happen to Sequim and the community.”

“People want to know about their town,” Rychlik said.

At the current exhibit building, Reandeau Stipe said they continue to see visitors from all over the world especially for the mastodon tusks. While a majority of visitors come from out of area, she said a larger influx of locals have been coming in recently.

The Sequim Museum started in the 1950s on the city clerk’s desk at Sequim City Hall, grew to fill a closet and a store room before moving to Sequim High School where it was called the Sequim Natural History Museum. In 1979, museum officials opted to purchase the Old Post Office in 1979 and move the facility there. In 1992, the Sequim-Dungeness Museum and Peninsula Cultural Arts Center merged and later became the Museum & Arts Center in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley.

Logistics

Museum officials plan to list the current exhibit building and former Sequim Post Office on Cedar Street for sale in the next 60 days.

Reandeau Stipe said those funds would go to the new building and maintenance at  the Dungeness Schoolhouse.

As an all-volunteer organization, she said the new building would save the organization money on insurance and other necessities and make it easier to manage facilities as an all-volunteer organization.

Rychlik, the building’s project manager, said tentative construction would begin by early July depending on permitting from the City of Sequim.

As with other museum projects, much of the construction and equipment will be provided in-kind from Sequim pioneers like Rychlik, John Dickinson and Dan Smith.

Rychlik said the property sales put the Sequim Museum at about 75 percent of the funds they need.

At the Forks Timber Museum, manager Linda Offutt said they don’t have any plans for capital improvements following the property sales.

She said in five years they may need a new roof and may look to expand in the future.

“We’re fortunate we’ve been able to put into a CD and earn some interest until our board decides its next steps,” Offutt said.

The Forks Timber Museum was founded in 1982 and its log cabin structure was built in 1989, she said.

Next steps

Sequim Museum volunteers have several fundraiser plans in the near future to help make the new exhibit building a reality. Some new ideas include participating in a flea market on April 23 at Sequim Prairie Grange and coordinating a barn dance fundraiser in the summer while they continue other fundraisers such as providing parking during Lavender Weekend, participating in the First Friday Art Walk, offering book signings, and selling commemorative bricks that will be placed inside the new exhibit building.

Reandeau Stipe said an important part of sustainability for the museum is the Dungeness Schoolhouse, which the museum acquired in 1995. Its rentals pay for utilities, subsidizes utilities and insurance and puts monies into the general fund, she said.

For more information about the Sequim Museum, attend its annual meeting at 1 p.m. Saturday, March 26, in the Dungeness Schoolhouse, 2781 Towne Road.

Make donations and inquiries at 175 W. Cedar St., email sequimmuseum@olypen.com, call 681-2257 or visit www.sequimmuseum.com.