Harbor History Museum

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Stephanie Lile owned her own traveling exhibit company and worked for various museums, such as the Washington State History Museum, J. Paul Getty Museum, and the National Museum of American History. But in 2017, she felt called to be the director of the Harbor History Museum where she could steward, conserve, and safeguard the South Sound’s past. Having grown up in Gig Harbor, Stephanie understands that the Harbor History Museum is an essential part of our community’s identity and views it as an honor to help visitors and residents alike learn about local history and cultural traditions here in the Gig Harbor region that connect to branches of national and international importance.

The Harbor History Museum is our area’s premier resource that provides learning opportunities to residents, visitors, researchers, and students alike who are curious, engaged, and delighted by our region’s rich history and unique heritage. It has been an organization since 1964 and a permanent museum since 2010. The facility includes an 1893 fully restored one-room schoolhouse (the last remaining one in our area), a 65-foot wooden purse seiner fishing vessel currently under restoration, the first Thunderbird sailboat ever built, 7,000 square feet of exhibition space, and a 900-square-foot library, research, and meeting room. Each year over 1,500 students step back in time with the museum’s Pioneer School Experience, a public education program that allows kids to experience a pioneer school complete with period costumes, lessons, recitations, music, recess, and lunch. The museum is continually evolving and changing exhibits, programs, products, and scholarships.

The Harbor History Museum does more than provide research services and community historic preservation advocacy. They host various public programs on a variety of topics like Humanities in the Harbor and the Gig Harbor Literary Society, they feature various local artists in their lobby gallery, and they hold family fun nights with storytelling and fun activities. The Harbor History Museum is actively seeking support for low-income school visits that would provide operational funding and transportation for schools to attend programs at our local non-profits.

Find out more about the Harbor History Museum here.

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