WEST SEATTLE GIVING SPIRIT: Southwest Seattle Historical Society focused on future as well as past

The past and the future are in view today as our West Seattle Giving Spirit spotlights on local nonprofits continue. Three times a week through year’s end, WSB is bringing you this special holiday-season opportunity to learn more about, and support, about some of our area’s hardworking nonprofits, in partnership with the Learning Communities Foundation. Today – you’ll see why the Southwest Seattle Historical Society and Log House Museum aren’t just looking back:

The Southwest Seattle Historical Society promotes inclusive, local history through education, preservation, and advocacy. The organization owns and operates the Log House Museum, a City of Seattle Historic Landmark, located one block from Alki Beach, known to Coast Salish people as sbaqʷabqs, or Prairie Point.

SWSHS has big plans for 2025 and beyond, including a major overhaul of the Log House Museum’s exhibitions. Keep an eye out for exciting developments on this project in 2025 and donate today to help advance SWSHS’s vision to transform how visitors experience the Log House Museum.

Today, SWSHS welcomes museum visitors to the Log House Museum (its current exhibition, Seattle’s Forest: The West Duwamish Greenbelt, highlights the geologic, indigenous, and political history of the city’s largest contiguous forest), provides tours to hundreds of local students a year, and hosts public programming, like Alki History Walking Tours

The SWSHS also presents Words, Writers, Southwest Stories, a popular monthly speaker series. (A recent program featured artist and author Bradi Jones and music historian Peder Nelson to discuss Jones’s grunge-era coloring book and the intersection of art and music in Seattle’s grunge scene.

Next month’s program features David Peterson, a historic resource consultant, who will discuss the landmarking of West Seattle’s Cettolin House, which was recently in the path of the West Seattle light rail extension plan. Information and registration at our website.

The Southwest Seattle Historical Society also cares for a Native Plant Garden as well as a unique collection of more than 10,000 artifacts, many of which are now viewable online or at the Log House Museum, including the original Alki Beach Lady Liberty and a fragment of the original West Seattle Bridge, permanently closed after the freighter Antonio Chavez, piloted by the infamous Rolf Neslund, collided with the bridge in 1978.

This year, SWSHS began a multi-year interpretive planning project supported by an inaugural and competitive grant from the newly established Maritime Washington National Heritage Area. The planning will result in a permanent, interactive exhibit at the Log House Museum that will highlight the historical and cultural significance of Alki Beach, prioritize interactive museum experiences and the display of historical society artifacts, share diverse stories from across the Duwamish Peninsula, and extend to the exterior of the Log House Museum.

Planning for this exhibit is well underway and has included participation from dozens of community partners, heritage and museum professionals, and the Duwamish Tribe. The project is rooted in SWSHS’s 2024-2026 Strategic Plan and inspired from a Peninsula-wide community survey conducted by SWSHS in 2023.

SWSHS is supported by a 12-member board of trustees, advisory committees, including a DEAI Committee, volunteers, members, and many community partners. SWSHS employs a full-time programs and outreach director. Here’s how your West Seattle Giving Spirit can support the SWSHS:

Donate here
Volunteer. Get Involved here
Plan a Visit or Tour
Questions? museum@loghousemuseum.org