The Kettle Falls Historical Center museum has reopened after a broken pipe caused major water damage in 2023.
“Some people would have just given up on it, honestly, like, cut their losses and moved on, but these guys worked really hard to bring it back,” said Sylvia Peasley, an enrolled member of the Colville Tribe.
The museum, founded in 1984 and located near St. Paul’s Mission on the Columbia River, was celebrated Saturday when dozens of people waited for the doors to open. Once inside, visitors would see renovated exhibits on Hudson's Bay Co. Fur trading, history on gold mining and Indigenous trade routes.
Louanne Atherley, a board member of the historical center, said they were able to restore it with the support of community members and volunteers.
She said the museum will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday until Sept. 15.
Peasley, who was among those waiting to go inside, said she spent 30 years working with the Colville Tribe's history and archaeology program and often did work in Kettle Falls.
Making the drive from Orofino, Idaho, she said she felt excited to see the museum reopen, especially given how much the place means to her and the Kettle Falls community.
“We did a lot of work up here as part of our usual and custom territories, the importance of all our people that camped and did everything here,” Peasley said. “This place is special to us. Everything being here, it, to me, represents the way our people used to gather.”
Dwight Morgan, a volunteer at the museum for more than 20 years, said the center was severely damaged when a water pipe broke. Water poured down from the ceiling, flooding the entire building, he said.
“It was destroyed. You walk up the door and you hear this waterfall in here, and walking in, everything's blue, green – the walls lost a lot of exhibits,” Morgan said.
Following the incident, Morgan said the community rallied, with everyone contributing to the museum’s restoration and new exhibits. Among the additions, he said, are firearms that were built by fourth graders from Kettle Falls Elementary more than 20 years ago.
“One year, they would research how to make the firearms and then a year later, they made each part and put it all together,” said Morgan, who’s also a retired teacher.
The firearms are on display in the museum’s “Trade Guns” exhibit, all of which are functional and usable for hunting.
On the other side of the center, Shawn Brigman, a cultural recovery specialist for Salishan and Sturgeon Nose Canoes and an enrolled member of the Spokane Tribe, constructed a 12-foot-high Tule Mat Lodge for the museum, which is made of bulrush or reed.
“I had to go out and harvest the Tule reeds in August,” Brigman said. “The material cured through the wintertime, and then I was able to sew all the mats for that lodge during the winter, and then come springtime, I was able to actually install it.”
Once he began sewing, Brigman said he would work on the mats eight hours a day. The display contains about 10 mats.
"It's probably 23 feet long, 12 feet high and 14 feet wide," Brigman said. "We left it deconstructed so that visitors can see the inside of the lodge."
Having visited the center since he was 9 years old, Brigman said being asked to help rebuild the museum, and seeing others come together, was a good experience.
“It's just been amazing for different people from different cultural backgrounds to kind of come together and celebrate the reopening in 2025,” Brigman said.