Chelan County Historical Museum

Museum location: Cashmere, Chelan County

Permanent displays: This extensive museum complex consists of an exhibit building and a reconstructed pioneer village created by moving 20 original pioneer structures. Next to the village, you can climb aboard a 1908 Great Northern Railroad caboose.

Museum exhibits tell the story of the Indians of the Columbia River plateau, with a focus on local tribes and events. The Wenatchee Tribe (also spelled Wenatchi) lived along the Wenatchee River, which flows from the Cascades into the Columbia River. They were known as one of the most peaceful and hospitable tribes of Eastern Washington and assisted settlers.

The 1855 treaty with the whites lumped the Wenatchee and other local tribes in as part of the Consolidated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, even though they were not of the same ancestry, spoke a different language, and were not always on good terms with the Yakama. Incredible stone artifacts from extensive private collections reside in the museum, including items that date back 9,000 years. Examples of baskets, made both for daily use and for trade to settlers, are displayed, and local and Yakama beadwork decorates bags and gloves. Beadwork designs of the plateau tribes are characterized by animal and flower motifs, as opposed to the geometric styles of the Plains Indians.

Additional displays describe the Wenatchee's use of local plants for food and crafts. Meso-American artifacts from A.D. 600-800 depict the heritage of the area's Hispanic families. The lower level of the museum includes an extensive collection of minerals, petrified wood and locally found rocks, as well as samples of items used by local pioneers.

Highlights: In back of the museum, original pioneer structures form an impressive and delightful village that flanks a broad lawn. Peer through the open doors of the buildings to see fully furnished rooms — you can see the wide variety of goods for sale in the general store, saddles being repaired in the saddle shop, the broad bar and the piano in the Buckhorn Saloon, and two tiny cells in the jail. Several homesteaders' cabins in the village illustrate the daily life of settlers, where families lived in tiny log cabins in this area during the 1880s. An assay office and re-created mine area give a glimpse of the gold mining that took place on nearby Blewett Pass in the 1860s.

Hours: Daily March 1-Oct. 31, 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Friday-Sunday Nov. 1-Dec. 21, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Admission: Adults $4.50, seniors and students $3.50, children 5-12 $2.50, families $10.

Directions: In Cashmere, the museum is just off Highway 97 at 600 Cotlets Way.

For more information: 509-782-3230 or www.visitcashmere.com/pionvilandmu.html or www.historylink.org.

— Cathy McDonald, Special to The Seattle Times

Cathy McDonald, a Renton-based freelance writer, is a regular contributor to Northwest Weekend.