Jefferson County historical resource center open for rare tours today

PORT TOWNSEND — Today, the Jefferson County Historical Society will provide tours of its stored collection.

The behind-the-scenes half-hour ours will be from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Jefferson County Research Center at 13692 Airport Cutoff Road. The last tour will begin at 3:30 p.m.

The open house will include a walk-through of the collections storage space and time with the collections manager and archivist. Visitors can see more of the historical society’s collection up close, learn about collection care and hear about plans afoot to repair the collection building.

On average less than 10 percent of the items in any museum’s collection are on display at any one time, organizers said, because of space and the special care many artifacts require.

While it is unusual to be able to tour all of the collection, the Research Center is open to the public five days a week.

For more information, see www.jchsmuseum.org/Sites/ResearchCenter.html.