BCHS was formed in 1951 with the goal of preserving and sharing our local history. In the late 1970s the Philomath College Building was saved and restored by a group of local citizens. We opened our Philomath Museum in that building in 1980, and operate it to this day. In 2008 after years of negotiation and preparation we acquired the collection of the Horner Museum from OSU, and built the Johnson Collections Center to store it in. In 2021 we opened the Corvallis Museum.
Our mission is to connect our community by preserving and sharing its diverse, evolving stories through history, culture, and art.
We achieve this through:
Authenticity - We provide access to history and culture through well-documented collections, accurate interpretation, and reliable scholarship.
Curiosity - We encourage curiosity about history and culture, within ourselves and our community, when sharing and exploring the relevance of the stories we tell.
Cultural Humility - We respect diverse cultures and perspectives and continually challenge our biases by engaging in meaningful dialogue with others.
Excellence - We strive to meet the highest professional standards through combining best practices and innovation in order to serve our community and engage at the deepest level.
Our vision:
We are a center of the community, fostering dialogue and ideas that catalyze an inclusive understanding of our past and culture, and consideration of the shared future we hope to create.