The Story of Us: Clark County Then & Now | CC Historical Museum -📍 Vancouver, WA [Resharing]

In an iconic red brick building on Main Street, the Clark County Historical Museum is breathing new life into the past and shining a light on our present. But “our” museum doesn’t stop at its four walls - it spills out into the streets through walking tours, community programs, and creative exhibits that help us understand where we’ve come from and where we're headed. In this episode, Executive Director Brad Richardson shares how CCHM curates stories that reflect the lives of Clark County residents and why history remains one of our most powerful tools for connection.

Click here for the walking tour map!   

🗺️  Visit them at www.cchmuseum.org | Instagram | Facebook   

👀  For pictures and more, visit the episode page.  

>> Get free admission to the museum by mentioning I'm Into This Place at the front desk! << 

🎉 This episode also celebrates:

• Downtown Camas Association
• Hidden House
• Tap Union Freehouse
• Kiggins Theater

Transcript

[00:00:00] Adriana: Hi everybody. It's Adriana, the founder of I'm Into This Place and your host, and I am here today to wish you a very, very happy New Year. I hope that you will accept my best wishes for a year filled with more arts, culture, heritage, and gathering together. We're on a small break between seasons one and season two, and so today I offer you one of our very first episodes and a chance to listen again to my interview with Brad Richardson, the executive director of the Clark County Historical Museum.

In this interview, I went out into Vancouver with Brad and he showed us all around downtown and took us behind the scenes in some places that I didn't even know were historically significant. As I mention in the intro, you can find a map to all of the things that we talk about on our website. We're constantly innovating and bringing you new ways of connecting with the cultural community here in Clark County.

If you've never checked out our map before, I think that you will really enjoy seeing what we're building. And a special shout out to our community voices segment here at the end of 2025. If you've never called in and shared your voice with us to tell us about your favorite spots, now is your time in the show notes of this episode and always on our website is information on how you can share your voice with us.

Call, leave us a message or send us a voice note and we'll put your voice on our podcast shouting out places in Clark County that you think other people should know about. We're building this cultural community together, and it's been my absolute honor to spend 2025 with the people who make this a wonderful place to live, and that includes you, our listeners.

So happy New Year everybody, and I look forward to seeing you for season two in [00:02:00] just a few weeks. Enjoy.

I'm standing on the corner of 16th and Main Street in downtown Vancouver and I'm looking up at a red brick building, which when it opened in 1909, was the home of the Fort Vancouver Regional Library, but now it is home to the Clark County Historical Museum, where they have exhibits about everything from boating to beer.

They bring the past into the present in a way that's really interesting and fun and kind of surprising. I'm here to meet with executive director Brad Richardson, and he's gonna take me all around the inside of the museum. And then he's promised to take me on a walking tour of the three blocks around the museum down here on Main Street, and he says that there's a lot of really cool old buildings that we pass by all the time and don't even realize are there.

I am going to make a map of all of the places we stop at today and put that map link in the show notes. So if you wanna follow along, you can find that there. Okay, let's go in. 

Welcome to I’m Into This Place, your deep dive into the local arts, culture, and heritage of Clark County. From fabulous new restaurants to quirky art installations to the historical sites you never even knew to look for, we’re inviting you along. Whether you're a Clark County connoisseur or just starting to get to know her, get ready to fall head over heels for this place we call home. I'm your host, Adriana Baer, and I'm into this place. Let's go.

I have made it inside the Clark County Historical Museum and I’m standing with the one and only Brad Richardson, who is the Executive Director here. This whole museum, you know it's really different from what we think of as a [00:04:00] museum, you know, where we go in and we have to stand, you know, with our hands behind our backs and kind of lean in, scholarly-like. But here what we see are, one of my favorite things about museums is, sort of artifacts, right? Where we're seeing, you know, photographs of real people and things that they touched. And it's not high art, it's our history. 

[00:04:25] Brad: Oh yeah. No, it's meant to, it's meant to tell the community story and it's meant something for us to do that together. And actually the space that we're standing in, uh, fits really well with that. 'cause this is where we do our first Thursday Speaker Series Program. And so for, oh man, probably more than 15 years, we've gathered people together in this room to be able to sit down and hear someone talk about a local piece of history, or a piece of Washington state history or panel groups, share their stories and talk about their lived experience.

And so it's so many nights I've been able to sit in this room and hear people provide the story of our community or other places in our state. And then from there, hear people start to share their own stories. I've learned so much history from those presentations about local folks just by being present and being here and gathering together, which is just one of the keys that we're trying to do because it's all about engaging with each other, talking about our stories, seeing what these stories mean.

There's just a lot of opportunities to be able to just get together and actually see each other on a human level. 

[00:05:37] Adriana: I love that. One of the things I love is the architecture here, that oh yeah, you know, this is an old Carnegie Library. It was opened in 1909. 

[00:05:45] Brad: Yeah. Original 1909, and then 1940s edition on the back.

[00:05:48] Adriana: Yeah. So even in the architecture of the building, you can kind of feel how Clark County has grown and developed. And that we are a [00:06:00] community that wants to gather, so we needed a gathering place. So they built this room, right? Yeah. And now you are opening it up, not just for people interested in the history, but also for people interested in the present, what's going on in our community right now. 

[00:06:14] Brad: Oh yeah, no, there, I mean, it's all one continuous narrative and you know, you can always joke and say like, history ended on a specific date, or, you know, when do you decide the cutoff for history? You really can't. And we're always adding the next page to the greater chapter of what we're trying to accomplish.

And I always make the joke that history is the instruction manual for society. And it's like, let's go back and take a look at what it's taken for people to build the things that we have today. Let's look at where they were successful, and then let's look at opportunities where maybe people stumbled and we can learn from that.

You know, it's easy to, to look at what's done right and all that, but to be able to learn and say, here's how we can do something different. That's really valuable. 

[00:06:57] Adriana: Yeah. Show me some of your favorite pieces in the main museum? 

[00:07:03] Brad: Yeah, well, one of the things that I do love, we have a brewing exhibit and we actually built out a bar as a part of our interactive display because we wanted to showcase all the contemporary breweries. So in 2020 when we opened, we went and grabbed a ton of cans from all these breweries. So these are all Clark County breweries and these are all designed by local artists. We even showcased the local artists here, and then we had this thing where we could say that you could belly up to history when we put this timeline down of different bars that were around over time.

So I've had a ton of conversations just standing behind this bar, uh, as people are kind of milling around and having some drinks, and it does have kind of that, like gathering space kind of bar feeling. It's a lot of fun. And then also in addition, we have a can that's in the background right there, which is our [00:08:00] 60th anniversary beer can, because we partnered with Lewit Brewing Company and did a specialty beer that they produced an American Light lager, and then they designed the can based on our 60th anniversary exhibit. Uh, so as far as I know, we're the only museum to get our own special anniversary beer. 

[00:08:19] Adriana: So far. Yeah, that's gonna be a trend.

[00:08:22] Brad: And then the other one, actually one of two cans over that Daredevil Davidson was a, uh, collab between uh, Barlow's and 54 40. And what they did is they worked with us on the label and so we were able to name the beer, uh, because there was a stunt man in the Camis Washugal area by the name of Seth the Davidson.

And a lot of us who grew up in Camas Washougal knew about Seth Davidson because he was the guy that was known for riding his motorcycle up Beacon Rock. And he was also a county commissioner. He was just this wild dude and, uh, on the front. You actually see him in a plane with his wife going to fly to a dance.

And so we were able to provide a photo and some, uh, text for the can. And it was this kind of like, fun collab between the breweries and the museum to just share some history while someone's kicking back and having a pint. 

[00:09:14] Adriana: I think that is so cool. And I love, also, that these are local artists that you're featuring as well.

[00:09:21] Brad: Oh yeah. And the reason we wanted to have this, and this is kind of where you walk into the exhibit, you know, to start off, we wanted to have this understanding of the tie between today and yesterday. It's where you come in and you read about the Hudson's Bay Company, uh, bringing brewing culture to the community. But then you turn around the corner and you see contemporary cans. But while you're looking at contemporary cans, you can read all the bars that are here in the 19 hundreds, and then you flip around and you start to read about the Vancouver Barracks and early brewing. Henry Winehart, uh, got his start over here in Vancouver.

[00:09:53] Adriana: Okay, so we've got the beer exhibit. We've got the bookshop and we've also [00:10:00] got. A lot of boats, a lot of nautical things as we are want to do here in this area. 

[00:10:06] Brad: The thing that we're trying to do is we're trying to think about, you know, what stories that we can tell that people are gonna feel are a mirror of their lives, or that they, that reflect kind of their interests.

So, beer. Beer was an easy one, right? Well, the other thing that was an easy one was we have all of this development on the Vancouver waterfront and, you know, we've all seen these buildings rise and all this stuff change. And the berm that was, uh, you know, basically separating Vancouver from its waterfront, holes were punched through it after a hundred years of separation.

And now, it’s this, just real big focus of the city. It's this place where people from all over are coming to engage with our community. And so we wanted to provide kind of the context and the background 'cause that's what we are good at. And so we created Currents of Progress to talk about Clark County's rivers, roads, and ports, so that as people are coming in and enjoying the waterfront, they can come and stop at the museum and they can stroll through understanding what was the story before we had that big development.

And so it goes with a timeline, goes from time immemorial, talks about, uh, you know, Native American nations, we talk about early days on the river. And the cool thing about this exhibit is that we really had our first opportunity to work closely with stakeholders through this exhibit. So we have a panel about the Port of Vancouver and we wrote and we did the research and we did all this, and then we connected with the Port of Vancouver and actually had the conversation to make sure that it mirrored their culture, it mirrored their history that they identified with it. We got the Port of Camas Washougal, we talk about the Camas Mill, and we talk about the Washougal woolen mill.

And then we do talk about the different facilities that the Port has. And so it was really neat getting to know them and especially. Being the hometown port for me, it was a, it was a blast. And then Ridgefield was fun. We worked with their staff over there and we talked about the foundations of [00:12:00] it, but then we also talked about the environmental cleanup.

And then we always have a panel, just like we did in the brewing that says continuing currents, that talks about future developments. It talks about, uh, places, especially with Native American nations. You can see the kapo section here. We want to really make clear there's a continuity in the Native Nation's story that it is, people have always been present, people have always been thriving.

And that even though there were, um, the struggles that they still were living and having culture and having family and friends and love and all those things, and so we always want to keep that continuity present and also let people know that there's vibrant native communities today. So it's just really cool to be able to have these kind of time panels into contemporary history.

This part here. This is Homegrown Historians, and this exhibit is a showcase of just a lot of the objects from our collection. 

[00:12:55] Adriana: I'm seeing games, I'm seeing, you know, old electronic, you know, um, learning devices. I don't even know what these are. These are, but they're, they're really fun stuff. Just to know that, you know, people touched these things and used these things and, um, a lot of science and innovation coverage. It's cool. 

[00:13:16] Brad: Yeah, weather. We had to do weather. Weather and trees. People in Clark County, very much focused on their weather and trees. 

[00:13:21] Adriana: trees, we like to talk about very, those things, very focused on their weather 

[00:13:23] Brad: Uh, and then the other thing too is we always try to do interactives and we actually partnered with the Columbian here. And the Columbian obviously, we, uh, you know, they, we always talk about that they do the first draft of history and then we pick it up from there. And then we wanna show that, you know, we have this history and it's not just sitting here static, but you can also go online and look at old newspapers that we've digitized.

We have, uh, 10 years of the Vancouver Independent. We have 18,000 plus images. We have hundred, 200 oral histories, and just tons of digital content, tons of [00:14:00] archives, and you can sit at home. And go through these old newspapers at your leisure on your iPad. 

[00:14:05] Adriana: So I'm not microfiching anymore, is what you're saying.

[00:14:07] Brad: We're getting away from that. We're getting away from that because you know, there's a reason historians always have glasses. I should mention the piano. So we are really grassroots focused. We're focused on community conversations, we're focused on the big, the little, the medium sized stories. Like we just wanna talk about humanity in life.

But there is also stuff that we have that's like a pretty big deal, and this is the Covington piano, which as far as we're aware, is the first piano that was brought to the Pacific Northwest. It was brought, brought by, uh, Richard and Charlotte Covington. Uh, during the Hudson's Bay period, they taught, um, school children on this piano.

And so this is not just an important piece to Clark County. This is an important piece to our region, if not to the whole Pacific Northwest. Uh, and this piano is just an incredible example of just the things you never know you're gonna find that have huge significance, uh, to not just your community, but to your state and beyond when you visit these local museums.

[00:15:12] Adriana:That's cool. 

[00:15:16] Brad: So, we spend all this, uh, time touring around the museum, but we have just so much engagement with people beyond, so we probably have, you know, we have uh, thousands of people that come through the museum, but we engage with tens of thousands of people out across the community through our walking tours.

Uh, so we do walking tours of downtown Vancouver, and essentially it's drawing people out into the community, getting them out on the street to be able to see the history that lives all around them. When you come out on a walking tour and you walk around a community and you see the buildings and you see the little Easter eggs and you hear the little pieces of history, you get to see [00:16:00] history in the wild, which is just super cool. And we think of all of the communities, the downtowns, the buildings, uh, the historic sites—we think of those as extensions of the museum. So we're always trying to curate the museum of the community. Not just the museum within four walls. 

When you walk and you look just north of 13th Street and you see, you know, these brick buildings, kind of the more commercial, and all of a sudden you have this peaked roof popping out of this other brick building. When you look at that and you go on a tour, you realize that was the Hidden family's barn.

And if you hadn't heard about the name Hidden, Hiddens were brick producers here in Vancouver and they produced brick for not just Clark County, but for areas, uh, all up and down the coast. And since they produce brick, instead of having a barn that was wood, they had a barn that was made of brick and it still stands.

And this whole block are buildings that the hidden family constructed over the years. So the ones that are closest to, uh, Mill Plain here, those are 1940s structures. But the hidden house on the other side is an 1884 building. So this is the Hidden House. It was the house of, uh, Lowell M Hidden. I love to show this.

So right here, people wouldn't realize, but the Hidden House is the original home of Clark College. 

[00:17:23] Adriana: Wow. 

[00:17:25] Brad: Yeah. We got Loop Key Florist up here. So now it's Tap Union and the Loop Key Florist was here from like 1909 until like 2014. He had a little wooden flower card at this corner, and then eventually was able to raise enough money to be able to build a wooden building. So they did have a wooden building at the property, and then his son, uh, Rudy and his daughter Gertrude, took over and they had this one built. And this was designed by, uh, Donald Stewart, who was a really prominent architect, uh, here in [00:18:00] Vancouver. And Rudy, actually went on to become the mayor of Vancouver.

We will pop down. I'll show you just, uh, just a couple more buildings real quick. So, St. James, uh, cathedral, uh, proto Cathedral, and this is a building that was built in 1885 and they've done an amazing job. You can see that they've kept it up.

This building is amazing. This is an old telephone exchange, and it's the only one that I'm aware of in Vancouver that has these staggered corners, where they didn't just do a sharp corner, but they staggered them. And then it has just these wonderful embellishments all across the building. They cut the brick here in a curve.

[00:18:52] Adriana: That's fancy. 

[00:18:53] Brad: And you see the awning here, which obviously time has, uh, changed its color. But then you see the bell, which is the telephone system, ma Bell. And so even though this is offices now, it's no longer a telephone exchange. Uh, you can still see the remnants of what it was, uh, in the past.

This is the medical arts building. When we go past this, we talk about, uh, the medical history. So if you go to, uh, the Vancouver clinic at all, this is where they started, and it started with four physicians, and eventually they grew it to this huge employer, a huge medical provider in the community. This is a neat corner right here because there's an architect by the name of Day Hilborn, and Day Hilborn was like, he essentially Vancouver's most prolific architect, uh, in its entire history.

He wasn't just Vancouver, but he, uh, did buildings all over the region. And so Hillborn designed the medical arts building in 1928, which [00:20:00] is a Beaux-Arts style building, which Beaux-Arts, uh, had its founding in the 18, was it ‘92 ‘93? Chicago Exposition. Down there is the, uh, 19 ‘35 ‘36 Kiggens, uh, theater building, which he did. 500 truckloads of concrete art deco style building. Straight down the road 1941, Clark County Courthouse, 1961, Chase Bank, Hillborn.

[00:20:28] Adriana: Whoa. Wild.

[00:20:30] Brad: And it is an ultramodern building. So the same guy that did this thing, that looks old time brick. Did this sleek Art Deco. Did this kind of, obviously imposing courthouse. And did this wild. When this was open, the Columbian said that it was as modern as a rocket to the moon. If you care about a historic space, if you care about a place, one of the best ways to make sure that it stays there is by continuing to make history in that spot, go to those places, uh, buy from those businesses, live in those sites, like, engage with those things. If you like, if you like the architecture of the brick house, just have a beer once a week. 

[00:21:12] Adriana: I mean, that's not a hard ask. 

[00:21:14] Brad: No. And honestly, people who aren't from your community, they're looking for this. They, they, they want to come have a beer in a place that feels like it has some old bones. 

[00:21:22] Adriana:Yes, absolutely 

[00:21:24] Brad: That it's had many of a story before, like that is an appeal.

There's a character about historic buildings. There's an authenticity about these places and you cannot replicate that. 

[00:21:34] Adriana: We crave that. I think now. We don't want, you know, so much nonsense online now with digitized everything and AI imagery and to be able to really sit in a place and say, okay, what am I seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, what's really here and how can I engage with it? 

[00:21:57] Brad: And again, remnants, Vancouver Public Library right there at [00:22:00] the top of the museum. Yeah. I mean, the literal design of this building is influenced by its history. It was a Carnegie Library. Andrew Carnegie was doing these during the progressive era. And part of the idea during the progressive era, and something I think we take for granted is that self-education was not something that was amply available. Before the progressive era. So libraries, museums, a place like this potentially could've been someone's private collection that only their friends could have seen.

And Carnegie with the public library was changing that model so that people could self enlighten on top of education, they were able to get, they were able to go and have self-determined education. This place, since 1909, has represented. self-determined education, and the way the stairs are set up and the way the lights are, it's literally meant to be grandeur of raising the community up to the opportunity of education.

And the lights on the side are meant to be the lights of self enlightenment. And what's funny is it was a library and then it became a museum. And even though we do different things, our upcoming goal is the same, is to have an educated, thoughtful society that sees people on a human level. And recognizes our humanity and can do better through knowledge.

Same thing's happening here from 1909 til nine til 2025.

[00:23:33] Adriana: Oh, we're back inside. It was a blustery day when we were recording this, and so thank you so much for taking me around this. Just folks, that was just about three blocks around where the historical museum lives, so make sure to check out in the show notes a link to the walking tours, and you can go on any number of walking tours, including in the [00:24:00] fall, a haunted walking tour. Which I hear is really the place to be. But in the meantime, Brad, thank you for being my tour guide today. 

[00:24:09] Brad: Yeah. Thank you for walking around with me. 

[00:24:10] Adriana: Okay. In just a second, I'm gonna ask you what place you’re really into these days. But first for our listeners, you can find pictures of everything we talked about today by visiting I’mIntoThisPlace.com and clicking on podcast.

And while you're there, make sure to sign up for our weekly newsletter where we share even more behind the scenes photos and info about all of the organizations and artists in our community. And, we tell you about upcoming events. So if you like today's episode. The best way you can help us is to text it to a friend right now. Word of mouth is the absolute best way for us to make sure that everyone has access to the local arts, culture, and heritage that make our community thrive. So Brad, What place are you really into these days? 

[00:24:58] Brad: So the place that I'm really into is Downtown Camas and the Downtown Camas Association. And the reason for that is they're a Main Street program that supports small businesses, but that program also supports local history and history is actually in their goals, and they celebrate the story of Camas in an amazing way. And I'm a hometown kid, so every time I get to go down there and just do history together with them. It is absolutely incredible and they are beyond passionate about the community story. 

[00:25:27] Adriana: All right. You heard it here first, folks get you to downtown Camas and check out their living history too. Brad, this was so delightful. Thank you for your time., 

[00:25:37] Brad: Yeah, thank you for doing this.

[00:25:40] Adriana: Before you go, I've got a free offer for you. The Clark County Historical Museum is offering free admission to anybody who mentions I’m Into This Place at the front desk. You can find out more about the museum and us by visiting our website at I'mIntoThisPlace.com. We are produced and hosted by me, Adriana Baer, and edited [00:26:00] by Chris Martin Studios right here in Clark County, Washington.

We'll see you out there.