City makes moves to help preserve its past

The City of Shelton last week made a move to help preserve its past.

The Shelton City Council assured the Mason County Historical Society it will help the nonprofit group pursue a state historical grant to add storage space to its museum at 427 W. Railroad Ave. The structure was first the city hall, then the city library, and it's owned by the city.

"It's a perfect location, I think, for the museum," Liz Arbaugh, the group's executive director, told the Shelton City Council at its March 19 meeting. "It's an historic building, it's downtown, it's great for tourists and we've always felt our organization was a crucial anchor for the downtown area, even as economic conditions have fluctuated. But we have one critical difficulty with the building and that is our storage collection."

Arbaugh added, "We have an amazing collection of archives. We have 140 years of newspapers and photographs, negatives, tens of thousands of items and the majority of that is stored in what was originally built as a garage for fire engines."

The historical society also has items in two storage units, a shipping container and in the attic at St. David of Wales Episcopal Church, Arbaugh said.

"This stuff is not climate controlled," she said. "We have problems with mold, vermin, heat fluctuations that are really bad for the collection. All these things put our collection at risk. We've been trying to figure out, do we get another building? But we definitely don't want that, we love our location."

Arbaugh explained that the state Heritage Capital Projects grants are on a two-year cycle. Applications accepted this spring will be voted on by the state Legislature next year, and grant recipients have two years following acceptance to complete the project, she said.

The catch is that the state requires grant recipients to have a 10-year lease in place following completion of the project if they don't own the building, Arbaugh said. The group's current lease with the city expires in December 2026.

Mayor Eric Onisko said he doesn't see any problem with a lease extension.

"I can't think of a better tenant for a building like that, for the historical society," he said.

City Manager Mark Ziegler said the city will write a letter by last Friday stating it is interested in negotiating a lease extension with the group. Before the June 7 second grant application deadline, "the lease will come back to council, certainly, for approval," he said.

Arbaugh showed concept drawings for the proposed 10-foot extension to the building in the alley. The state grant would pay up to one-third the costs of the project. Arbaugh said she talked to the state Department of Archaeology and Preservation, "and we would not be touching the historical part of the building at all."

"We'd add at least 1,200 square feet, which would do wonders for us," she said. The addition would be climate controlled, she said.

As part of the proposed extension, the bathrooms would be reconfigured to make them more accessible, Arbaugh said.