Collections

The things we keep tell us who we are.

The Society cares for the photographs, objects, documents, and memories entrusted to it by generations of Marysville families.

Stimson Logging Company crew with the James Roe locomotive near Ebey Slough — Stimson Logging · James Roe locomotive at Ebey Slough

Explore online

Three deep ways into Marysville’s record.

Search the newspaper that documented the community, meet the people whose names shaped it, and open digitized publications from the museum library.

Early downtown Marysville streetscape with storefronts and people along the road — Local news · 1892–2020

Marysville Globe

The local record, year by year.

Search 129 years of physical holdings, digitized issues, acquisition notes, and known gaps in the Society’s newspaper collection.

Years cataloged: 129
Scanned issues: 1,146

Search the newspaper inventory

Historic Marysville lumber camp crew gathered for a group portrait — Community names · 1879 forward

People of Marysville

Meet the names inside the history.

Search mayors, council members, festival queens, postmasters, original voters, incorporation petitioners, first officers, and community historians.

Index entries: 480
Curated lists: 7

Explore People of Marysville

Cover of Marysville: A Self-Guided Tour, published in 1982 — Museum library · Digitized publications

Museum Library

Open a book from Marysville’s past.

Browse digitized booklets and research materials preserved in the museum library, beginning with a self-guided tour from 1982.

Featured year: 1982
Available now: 3 PDFs

Browse the museum library

Inside the archive

Many formats. One community story.

Each collection category offers a different way to understand the people, work, places, and traditions of Greater Marysville.

Photographs

Street scenes, portraits, schools, businesses, celebrations, and changing views of Greater Marysville.

Objects

Tools, household goods, signs, uniforms, equipment, and artifacts connected to local work and daily life.

Textiles

Clothing, quilts, uniforms, and handmade pieces that preserve personal and community stories.

Oral histories

Firsthand memories that add voices, context, and lived experience to the historical record.

Telephone history

Equipment and exhibits from the Norwesco Telephone Museum collection.

Photographic collection

Look closely. The details are the story.

These photographs preserve work, travel, commerce, family life, and the changing landscape of Greater Marysville. Dates and names are shown only where the surviving record is clear.

Early Marysville street lined with wooden buildings, residents, horses, and freight wagons — 01An early Marysville street scene with horses and freight wagons

Stimson Mill Company workers standing on enormous logs beside a riverside railroad — 02Stimson Mill Company log train beside the river

Logging crew seated on a felled tree beside two workhorses in a dense forest — 03A horse-logging crew pauses in the forest

Golden Rule Store in Marysville with a shopkeeper, early gas pumps, and a bicycle — 04The Golden Rule Store and its curbside gas pumps

Early automobile parked above a log pond at the Ebey Logging Company — 05An automobile at the Ebey Logging Company

Elevated view along an unpaved downtown Marysville street with storefronts and pedestrians — 06Downtown Marysville before the street was paved

Marysville homestead family beside a small wooden house and towering cedar stumps — 07A homestead family among the immense stumps left by clearing

Large group of lumber camp workers gathered between two wooden bunkhouses — 08A Marysville-area lumber camp crew

Two men and a horse-drawn freight wagon in front of the Great Northern depot — 09Freight arrives at the Great Northern depot

Two-story Marysville Hotel with a wraparound balcony on an unpaved street — 10The Marysville Hotel and its wraparound balcony

Construction crew posed on the tracks of a timber railroad bridge — 11A construction crew on a timber railroad bridge

Crain and McCann general store and neighboring businesses at Third and State in Marysville — 12Crain & McCann at Third and State

Stimson Logging Company crew gathered around the James Roe locomotive near Ebey Slough — 13The James Roe locomotive and Stimson Logging Company crew

Front elevation of the brick Marysville High School building completed in 1914 — 14Marysville High School, 1914

Logging workers building a rough timber track toward a steam engine in the forest — 15A steam engine at work in the forest

Two men posed beside and atop an enormous Douglas fir log on a Marysville and Northern railcar — 16A Washington Douglas fir log on the Marysville & Northern

Three people posed on the steps of a wooden building marked Kruse — 17A family portrait outside the Kruse building

Logging locomotive number 315 with its crew standing on a train of enormous logs — 18Locomotive No. 315, its crew, and a loaded log train

Marysville Fire Department members lined up with fire engines in front of the station — 19Marysville Fire Department members and apparatus

Marysville sawmill with workers, stacked lumber, mill buildings, smokestacks, and a water tower — 20The Marysville sawmill south of 116th Street and east of Interstate 5

Can you identify a person, building, date, or detail? Community knowledge helps make the collection more useful for everyone.

Share a clue or ask a question

Help preserve the record

Do you have a piece of Marysville history?

Before bringing an item to the museum, contact the collections team. They can learn about its story and discuss whether it fits the Society’s collecting mission.

Ask about donating an item

Tug Tillicum on Ebey Slough beside Marysville's historic waterfront industries — The tug Tillicum along Marysville's working waterfront.

Museum Store

Take a little history home.

Browse local-history books, gifts, keepsakes, and items that celebrate Marysville. Store purchases help support the Society’s preservation and education work.

Browse the museum store