Madras, Oregon

General, History, Historical Society, Library

The Jefferson County Historical Museum, located for many years in the upper floor of the historic old County Courthouse in downtown Madras, was established in the 1970s. Since 2012, it has been “in storage,” waiting for a new home in the Westside Community Center. The Museum’s collection is crammed with historically significant objects, artifacts, records, photographs, and archival materials. Each item tells its own distinctive part of the story of Jefferson County from Indian times to the homestead and railroad-boom era, through the Great Depression and drought to the advent of irrigation, dam construction, light industry, and tourism.