| |
Location | Bellingham, Washington |
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Type | Art museum, History museum |
Accreditation | American Alliance of Museums |
Architect | Olson Kundig Architects, Lightcatcher Building |
Website | www |
Old City Hall | |
Location | Bellingham, Washington |
Coordinates | 48°45′10″N122°28′48″W / 48.75278°N 122.48000°W |
Built | 1892 |
Architect | Alfred Lee |
Architectural style | Late Victorian |
NRHP reference No. | 70000648 [1] |
Added to NRHP | April 03, 1970 |
The Whatcom Museum is a natural history and art museum located in Bellingham, Washington. Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, [2] the Whatcom Museum has a three building campus that includes Old City Hall, the Lightcatcher building, and the Syre Education Center.
The Whatcom Museum was established as a non-profit organization in 1982. [3] The museum has a three building campus that includes Old City Hall, Syre Education Center, and the Lightcatcher building which encloses the Family Interactive Gallery (FIG).
The museum is jointly managed by the City of Bellingham [4] and the Whatcom Museum Foundation. [5]
The old city hall building was originally built in 1892 for the former town of New Whatcom. The original building was designed in a Late Victorian style by Alfred Lee, a local architect, who used red brick and Chuckanut sandstone for its construction. [6] The design itself was an almost exact replica of the second Saginaw County Courthouse in Saginaw, Michigan (1884, destroyed 1971), designed by Fred W. Hollister. [7]
At the time of construction, the building was situated on a bluff above Bellingham Bay. However, over the years, significant amounts of the waterfront were filled in to make more land. [8] Currently, the building sits above Maritime Heritage Park.
The building served as city hall until 1936, [9] and became part of the museum in 1941. [10] In 1962, fire damaged the building, but efforts from the community raised money to restore the building. [11]
In 2009, The Whatcom Museum opened a location in the newly designed Lightcatcher building. The Lightcatcher, designed by Seattle-based Olson Kundig Architects, is named for its 37 feet high and 180 feet long translucent wall, which facilitates a number of energy saving strategies.
The Whatcom Museum houses a collection of over 30,000 objects. [12]
Key holdings in the collection are the 4,000 plus items from the archives of Pacific Northwest photographers Darius Kinsey and Tabitha Kinsey. [13] [14]
The museum contains the John M. Edson Hall of Birds, which is a floor of hundreds of taxidermized birds, from the collection of John M. Edson.
Bellingham is the county seat of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It lies 21 miles (34 km) south of the U.S.–Canada border, between Vancouver, British Columbia, 52 miles (84 km) to the northwest and Seattle 90 miles (140 km) to the south.
Western Washington University is a public university in Bellingham, Washington, United States. The northernmost university in the contiguous United States, WWU was founded in 1893 as the state-funded New Whatcom Normal School, succeeding a private school of teaching for women founded in 1886. The university adopted its present name in 1977.
Fairhaven was a settlement in Washington state founded in 1883 by Dan Harris. In 1903, it became part of the city of Bellingham and remains a historic neighborhood.
Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) is a public university in University Center, Michigan, United States, in Saginaw County. It was founded in 1963 as Saginaw Valley College. It is located on 748 acres (303 ha) in Saginaw County's Kochville Township, approximately 5.5 miles (8.9 km) north of downtown Saginaw. Saginaw Valley State is the newest of Michigan's 15 public colleges and universities. SVSU offers over 100 academic programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels with approximately 8,500 students at its main campus in University Center. SVSU offers programs of study in its five colleges.
The Bellingham Herald is a daily newspaper published in Bellingham, Washington, in the United States. It was founded on March 10, 1890, as The Fairhaven Herald and changed its name after Bellingham was incorporated as a city in 1903. The Bellingham Herald is the largest newspaper in Whatcom County, with a weekday circulation of over 10,957. It employs around 60 people. It is owned by The McClatchy Company.
Sehome is a neighborhood in Bellingham, Washington, United States. It was the first town on Bellingham Bay and was founded in May 1858 by coal mine manager Edmund C. Fitzhugh, who named the settlement for his father-in-law, S'Klallam chief Sehome. The townsite was originally owned by the Bellingham Bay and British Columbia Railroad, which operated the Bellingham Bay Coal Mine until it closed in 1878. The town of Sehome was amalgamated in 1891 with three other settlements into New Whatcom, which was later renamed to Bellingham.
The Bellingham Public Library is a public library system serving Bellingham, Washington, US. It maintains four libraries, one in the Civic Center of downtown Bellingham, one in Fairhaven, one in Barkley Village, and one in the Cordata neighborhood, inside Bellis Fair Mall. The system is independent of the Whatcom County Library System, serving the entire county, but has a reciprocal borrowing agreement.
The T.G. Richards and Company Store, also known as Whatcom County Territorial Courthouse, is the first and oldest brick building in the state of Washington, United States, and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Helen Amanda Loggie was a U.S. artist, primarily known for her etchings of trees and coastlines of the Pacific Northwest.
Whatcom Community College is a public community college in Bellingham, Washington, in Whatcom County. Established in 1967, Whatcom has been accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities since 1976.
The history of Bellingham, Washington, as it is now known, begins with the settling of Whatcom County in the mid-to-late 19th century.
The Mount Baker Theatre is a 1,517-seat performing arts venue and national historic landmark in Bellingham, Washington, United States. The theater hosts professional productions and concerts as well as community performances from the north of Puget Sound. The theater's main stage is the largest theatrical venue in Washington north of Seattle's Paramount and 5th Avenue.
MV Plover is an 11-ton, 17-passenger ferry in Whatcom County, Washington, built in 1944, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. She is owned by the City of Blaine, Washington and operated by the nonprofit Drayton Harbor Maritime. She originally ferried workers from Blaine to the Alaska Packers' Association cannery at Semiahmoo Spit, carrying out this function until 1964. She was restored by volunteers of Whatcom Maritime Historical Society, and now carries passengers during the summer months from the Blaine harbor dock across Drayton Harbor to the resort dock. At approximately 1 kilometer, this is claimed to be the shortest ferry run in Washington. She is the second oldest operating foot passenger ferry in Washington, next to Kitsap Transit's Carlisle II which was built in Bellingham 27 years earlier, in 1917.
Ella Rhoads Higginson was an American author of award-winning fiction, poetry, and essays characteristically set in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. She was the author of 2 collections of short stories, 6 books of poetry, a novel, a travel book, well over 100 short stories, over 400 poems, and hundreds of newspaper essays. She was influential for the ways her writing drew international attention to the then little-known Pacific Northwest region of the United States. She served as an officer of the Pacific Coast Women's Press Association.
The City of Bellingham Police Department, more commonly known as the Bellingham Police Department and its initials BPD, is the primary law enforcement and investigation agency within the Bellingham, Washington city limits. Bellingham Police Department is the largest Police Department within Whatcom County, Washington and any other municipal agency north of the Seattle Metropolitan area. Bellingham Police Department is nationally accredited by the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs.
Elizabeth Aline Colborne (1885–1948) was an American printmaker and illustrator.
The Lottie Roth Block is an historic commercial building located near downtown Bellingham, Washington and is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Built by quarry manager and Washington State Legislator Charles Roth and named after his wife, Lottie, the building is clad in the famous Chuckanut Sandstone from his Bellingham Bay Quarry that would be used in countless building projects across the region. Completed in 1891, it was one of the last large commissions of noted Northwest architect Elmer H. Fisher and his only project in Whatcom County. While initially built as an office/retail building in anticipation of the commercial expansion of the town of Whatcom, it was converted entirely to apartments by 1912 when commercial development moved in the opposite direction towards New Whatcom, which after 1903 became the new city of Bellingham's downtown. Still strictly serving as a residential building to the current day, the Lottie Roth Block was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 12, 1978.
Lloyd Eldred Herman (1936-2023) was an American arts administrator, curator, writer, museum planner and acknowledged expert on contemporary craft. He was known for being the founding Director of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., from 1971 to 1986.
Old Main is a historic building on the Western Washington University campus in Bellingham, Washington. Constructed in 1896 to house the new Normal school and opened for classes in 1899, it is the oldest building on the campus. It currently serves as administrative and student services offices.