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NEWPORT — Pend Oreille County Historical Society, home to the Pend Oreille County Museum, opens for the 2025 season at 10 a.m. Friday, May 23.
The museum, which is adjacent to the Newport Centennial Plaza gazebo, the “Big Wheel” and Chamber of Commerce-hosted Visitors Center, features Native American artifacts, military items, railroad displays, four log cabins, a fire lookout replica, a sawmill, an icehouse, ox wagon shelter and root cellar, and multiple items that display 20th-century pioneer life in Pend Oreille County. In the surrounding area, there’s a church, farm machinery, a Burlington Northern caboose, schoolhouse, printing press, washing machine display, logging camp bunkhouse replica, 1947 firetruck and 1926 Model T Truck.
The research center is open by appointment and home to over 6,000 historical photos, out-ofprint books, biographies, obituaries, complete catalogue from 1897–2008 of The Newport Miner, Newport Pilot, Horizon and Voice, the Metaline Falls News and Ione Newspapers, Pend Oreille County records, school yearbooks, family albums, writings, sketches, over 300 County maps including homesteads and more. The gift shop sells numerous history and local author books, ornaments, railroad and gift items and the Historical Society’s publication The Big Smoke, which has been available 1969–2020. All back issues are available.
New to the giftshop are Pend Oreille County cookie cutters, children’s vintage- replica toys, playing cards, locally made wood items by Creations by the River, “Cedar’s Amazing Journey” by the Dalkena Highlands owner and “Along the Little Spokane River” by Ty Brown.
Hours are from 10 a.m.– 4 p.m. Friday, May 23, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Saturday, May 24 and 1–4 p.m. Sunday, May 25; from 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Monday–Saturday and 1–4 p.m. Sunday from Memorial Day–Labor Day; and weekends only from 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Saturday and 1–4 p.m. Sunday in September until Oct. 12.
