The fate of Independence’s local museum lies in the hands of the voters, and that decision is just days away, on Tuesday, Nov. 3. This past summer, the city announced that the facility would no longer be open to the public beginning on Aug. 26.
Following in the footsteps of Washington County’s Five Oaks Museum, the Heritage Museum has closed its doors to the public due to insufficient funds, and its building has been sold. According to the city’s website, the museum was created in 1976 and “began as a Bicentennial project to preserve and celebrate the stories of our local community.”
Washington County’s Five Oaks Museum and Independence’s Heritage Museum’s experiences are canaries in the funding coal mine. As the cost of operating a small museum increases and revenue streams for funding fall short, the potential for the closure of more museums across the state could grow.
The Heritage Museum — in Polk County, about a dozen miles southwest of Salem and three miles east of Monmouth, home to Western Oregon University — is a treasure trove of historical documentation about the town and its founding. Its collection has provided insight into the founding of the state and the people who have lived here.
“Our database has a record of about 25,000 items. The largest portion of our collection is archival and artifacts from local families, so they are historic pieces connected to local families or businesses,” said Amy Christensen, director of the museum.
“The mission of our collection is specific to history from the local families … that are very directly related to Independence’s history. One of my favorite artifacts in the museum is a ledger that we have from the local Grand Army of the Republic from 1895. In it was the founding members of that local post here in Independence, handwritten with their Civil War service records and names and what they did here in town,” Christensen said.
“We have local family letters, and quite a few textile items in our collection. We’ve got a Spanish American War nurse’s uniform from a local woman. We have things that came directly from the city, old police ledgers with records of what they got up to in town in the 1930s,” she added.
These records also include genealogies, cemetery maps, family photo albums, and records from local businesses such as inventory, employee records, product documentation, and catalogs.
When the Heritage Museum was open, staff would frequently receive requests for information from locals who were researching their family’s genealogy or investigating a historic building or other property. They also received requests for assistance from professional historians and writers seeking information from the museum’s records.
“We have a fascinating collection of letters that were recently processed by one of our volunteers from a local gentleman to his mother throughout his entire World War II experience, from setting off for training to ‘hey, I’m coming home next week.’ There’re hundreds of letters, and the volunteer has been talking to a local author about what we are going to do about this story,” Christensen said.
Independence was once one of the biggest producers of hops in the world, and many of the records from those glory days are housed within the museum’s collections.
“Independence’s past claim to fame was being the Hops Capital of the World from about 1890 to 1940,” Chistensen said. “We have a record from the Wigrich Hop Ranch that has in-depth albums of images of the process of everything, from the pickers to what processing the hops looked like. We have had quite a few researchers come for that collection.”
The museum’s collected documents and artifacts are currently residing in the city’s civil center in a temperature and humidity controlled environment. The Heritage Museum’s funding has always come from the city, Christensen said, although additional funding from donations and the efforts of the Heritage Museum Society have helped the museum purchase artifacts, create installations, provide traveling exhibits, and provide for an intern.
The Heritage Museum Society, the nonprofit associated with the museum, is an integral part of what makes the museum work. According to the website, “Its mission is to promote and support the museum through community outreach, fundraising, and advocacy.”
“I believe our current board members are history buffs who have enjoyed and understood what the museum is about,” said Heritage Museum Society president Teresa Herrmann. The organization hosts fundraising events throughout the year bringing in speakers to discuss local and state history, assisting with the museum’s Ghost Walk, and showing a silent movie once a year with an original score provided by Independence musician Nathan Jr. at a local wine bar, The Valkyrie Tavern.
“We help collect (historical items), and we have helped through our volunteer hours working at the museum, help to document the (collection). We’ve just been very lucky to have a lot of people donate things to us for our collection,” Herrmann added.
“They (the museum) have done a fantastic job showing the local history and being creative with their space because they had such a small space, and yet they were able to bring these wonderful exhibits to us. We have a lot of fun, first of all, but we love just the idea of the museum and what it does for our community.”
The city building that housed the museum was sold on September 23, and its collections have been put in storage. What happens next depends on the outcome of Tuesday’s election.
This is a reckoning that has been a long time coming. The FAQ page of the city’s website explains that the community had been operating in a structural deficit; this is when spending exceeds funds.
The city’s website lists several reasons for its budgetary problems:
— “Oregon’s property tax system established through Measures 5 and 50, which limits the growth of property tax revenues available to local governments; inflation and rising costs for labor, materials, utilities, insurance, maintenance, and contracted services; and the increasing costs to provide City services.”
— “The City of Independence receives one share of the total property taxes collected,” the website states. The city receives 28 cents of each property tax dollar collected per a chart included on the web page (Community Services & Parks Fee – City of Independence).
— “The structural shortfall developed over multiple years. Before 2022, the General Fund relied on annual transfers and loans from other city funds to cover ongoing operating costs,” the website states. In other words, funds that were intended to maintain water, sewer, stormwater, and transportation services were instead being transferred to other city programs. Discontinuing these interfund transfers was meant to provide the municipality with a better idea of their operating costs.
A levy measure was put before voters in 2024 to address this shortfall, but it was rejected by 60% of Independence voters, according to The Oregonian, leaving the community with few options. An attempt to create a funding stream in the form of a city service fee was the next step.
The city council passed an ordinance creating the fee in June to provide funding for the museum, parks and the library. It would have added almost $20 to locals’ utility bill, but the Public Safety Fee would decrease by $7 per month, meaning the adjusted net monthly change would be $12.65.
According to Christensen, a new site for the museum was not written into the services fee, which only covers staffing.
“The amount of the fee that actually goes toward the museum is less than $2. It’s a very small amount,” she said.
Still, the ordinance spurred locals to start a successful referendum signature drive. With the Parks & Services Fee now on the ballot, according to state law, the city could no longer collect funds to keep the facilities open.
If the referendum passes and the fee remains, the city could soon reopen the remaining park closures – some were opened thanks to a grant from Friends of Local Parks, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization whose sole purpose is to keep parks in both Monmouth and Independence open. The process of closing the library is more complicated. State law requires two public hearings 90 days apart before a library can be closed. The second hearing is scheduled for Nov. 10. During this process, the library has remained open.
Speaking to the Polk County Itemizer, Emmanuel Goicochea, city communications director, said, “State law requires the two public hearings to be at least 90 days apart before a public library can be abolished, or its support withdrawn. However, state law does not establish a specific deadline for the City Council to make a final decision following the second hearing. So, at this point, Nov. 10 is the date of the second required public hearing, not a predetermined library closure date or a statutory deadline for the council to vote.”
This of course makes the fate of the museum’s collections even more tenuous, as the library was pivotal to the museum’s contingency plans when the city realized that it was dealing with a financial crisis.
“When we saw the financial-writing-on-the-wall several years ago, we started having these discussions,” Christensen said. “We got ahead of (the difficulty) a little bit by combining the library and museum into one department. The plan that was approved by the council a couple years ago was that the (museum) building would be (put up) for sale, and the collection would go into storage at the civic center where it is protected. Then we would maintain the museum as a department through pop-ups and (continuing) to go into the schools (with educational programming). We have a nonprofit arm, The Heritage Museum Society. So, while the nonprofit arm and the city work on a solution for a new permanent location, the collection will be stored in the center.”
The library has played an important part in expanding the Heritage Museum’s mission to share the history of the town, its founders and its residents with the community.
“We have a pop-up that is currently on display in the lobby of our public library, which was funded by the Heritage Museum Society, a nonprofit arm. It’s on our local railroad history,” Christensen said. The placement is apropos.
“Both the museum and the library are adjacent to Second Street, where our rail line passes through,” she added.
“We have made a little effort in this location to tell stories about the individuals and then connect those to broader, you know, broader scenes. But it’s the people here in town whose stories we’re sharing.”
The situation couldn’t be more Damoclesian for the small historical museum, yet Christensen is hopeful, as is the Heritage Museum Society’s Herrmann. They are in for the long haul whether the service fee passes or not.
“Since the building has sold, several supporters have reached out and have offered to help us in ways that are larger than we’ve seen in the past, so that gives me some hope, but they’re waiting to see how the election goes and what the best way they can support us,” Christensen said.
According to both Christensen and Herrmann, a variety of potential outcomes have been weighed and discussed, and a gamut of possible solutions have been considered. But one thing they both know — the museum will continue no matter what it takes even if the service fee fails to pass.
“If the museum is no longer really associated with the city, that changes what our direction would be, and I can’t tell you for sure what that will be, but I would imagine grant writing would be part of it if we can find places that would be willing to help fund (the museum),” Herrmann said.
State Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland, co-chair of the Oregon Arts & Culture Caucus, wants to increase the budget for arts and culture opportunities that would help small organizations like the Heritage Museum.
“This breaks my heart,” Nosse said of the museum’s closure. “We the state just helped (the City of) Rainier open its museum and cultural space two years ago. We often help with construction or building improvements, but operations (funding) is much more challenging.”
“If I can get the arts commission budget increased, then there might be opportunities the next time something like this happens to at least provide a stopgap emergency fund, or better yet, something more ongoing. I am also trying to see if Travel Oregon can help out with arts funding, but all of those things are in the works,” he added.
Meanwhile, Independence awaits the outcome of this coming Tuesday’s vote on the referendum of Ordinance No.1639, officially titled, “Creation of a new City Community Services and Parks Fee,” with hope and trepidation.
