Our Museum

Where We Live is all about sustainability issues, so why write about a museum? “Past is prologue”, said Shakespeare, and it’s true. What and who we were tells us a lot about what and who we are and shows us what we need to preserve at all costs and what we need to work on to be that much better.

The Shoreline Historical Museum was founded in 1976 as part of the American Bicentennial celebration. They have a Facebook page and are recognized locally and around the country.

It was housed in the historic Ronald School until this year, when by a long, Byzantine process, Shorewood High School took possession of the structure to integrate it into the new building. Their just two months ago in what used to be the James Alan Salon, at 18501 Linden Ave N, and they hope to add two new buildings to it in coming years to accommodate displays and artifact storage.

offers a changing exhibit set, a research collection of photos and other artifacts, walking tours of some of our neighborhoods, lectures, and educational opportunities. Current exhibits include “Linking The Community Through Time: Connections That Bring Us Together”, celebrating how we got the way we are, and “Once Upon A Time In Playland”, about the once-popular amusement park at Bitter Lake. They also house a number of specialty collections on Playland, our Pioneer Families, and the like.

The Museum gives us a good look at our past. Combine that with a familiarity with the City of Shoreline and City of Lake Forest Park websites and Google or Bing maps and you can start to imagine our future. How will we change with the coming of Link Light Rail up I-5? How can we expand our parks? When we daylight all our streams how will that redefine our neighborhoods? When the Aurora Corridor Project is complete how will that improve things? If fully built out how cool will Town Center and North City and the others be?

While I wish much more of their collection was visible online, that takes money and time. Perhaps you can help. Even the newest resident can gain understanding of our shared roots at the museum, and even a lifelong Shoreline native can be enriched by it. We’ll need all the long perspective we can get as we charge into the future!