Danielle Utter is a ball of fire….fire for a good cause. She is the Education & Programs Manager for the Clark County Historical Museum in Vancouver. I was blessed to meet her at the Clark County Genealogical Society conference the end of last May.

I asked her to tell me more about the collections of the Museum. “How long do you have?” she prompted quipped back.  “We have 46,000 photos of Clark County history posted online; we have issues of the Vancouver Independent back to 1910; we have ‘rooms and rooms’ of boxes for artifacts; we have the local NAACP collection online; we have hundreds of oral history interviews all online and so much more!

Ginny Majewski  (president of the Washington State Genealogical Society) and I visited the museum together that day and were so very impressed by their library…… shelves and shelves of archival boxes of documents all labeled for ease of access and more shelves and shelves of books regarding local history.

Danielle explained that they do work on mail or email research requests for a per-hour fee, but it’s free to anyone to come use the library in person. “Most folks come looking for information on property, homes and people” of this area, she said.

The museum partners with other local smaller museums; they have a First Thursday speaker series; they offer periodic historical Walking Tours (like of the old City Cemetery) and they have changing exhibits. The next exhibit, “Music, Movement & Sound,” features the Cotington piano, the very first piano in the Northwest, Danielle happily explained.

Danielle Utter welcomes questions, especially questions about photos to donate. You can contact her via the museum website, www.cchmuseum.org.

Thanks, Danielle, for a lovely (and too short!) visit.