The Wahkiakum County Historical Museum documents the layered history of one of Washington's most isolated counties: the Kathlamet people who built one of the region's largest Native American villages here, the fur traders who followed Lewis and Clark along this stretch of the Columbia, and the logging and fishing industries that defined the economy for over a century.
Wahkiakum County has never had a highway bridge across the Columbia — the only crossing into Oregon is the county ferry — so the museum also captures a sense of the insular, self-reliant character that geography imposed on the community. It's a small museum in a small town, but it tells a story you won't find told anywhere else.