PORT TOWNSEND — The Jefferson County Historical Society will host a 140th birthday bash Friday.
In addition to the free, public celebration at the Northwest Maritime Center, 431 Water St., the historical society will host a special First Friday lecture about the history of the S’Klallam people.
The event will begin at 4 p.m. with party favors for the first 140 people to arrive and cake and champagne for a toast.
Speeches to honor the organization’s special guests will start at 5:30 p.m.
Norm Stevens retired from the staff in 2018 after 10 years as the front desk greeter and docent. Gary Kennedy stepped down from the historical society’s board of trustees in 2018 after several years of service.
The historical society also will pay tribute to its volunteers.
Guests can browse an online collection, an oral history listening station, participate in a raffle for two nights at Kalaloch Lodge during an annual West End Weekend, get birthday hats featuring images from the historical society collection, sing a giant birthday card for well-wishes and other activities.
Barbarian Fine Cuisine will provide food.
The First Friday lecture will begin at 7 p.m. David Brownell, historic preservation officer for the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe, will talk about the village of qatay (Kai Tai, Kah Tai) and the history, archaeology and ethnography connecting the S’Klallam people and the city of Port Townsend.
On Sunday, the historical society will offer a behind-the-scenes tours of its stored collection.
Tours will be conducted from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Jefferson County Research Center at 13692 Airport Cutoff Road.
The rare open house will include a walk-through of the collections storage space and face time with the collections manager and archivist. Visitors can see more of the historical society’s collection up close, learn about collection care and hear about plans afoot to repair the collection building.
Tours will be 30 minutes in length. The last tour will begin at 3:30 p.m.
On average less than 10 percent of the items in any museum’s collection are on display at any one time, organizers said, because of space and the special care many artifacts require.
While it is unusual to be able to tour all of the collection, the Research Center is open to the public five days a week.
Visitors can digitally search hundreds of thousands of objects and archival documents and get help from volunteers.
The center also offers workshops and classes.
For more information, see www.jchsmuseum.org/Sites/ResearchCenter.html.
