Archives
Study Hall at the recently enlarged Tomales High School, 1923.
The Tomales Regional History Center Archives are a treasure house of documents, photographs, artifacts, books, maps, and textiles which represent the rich heritage of the shoreline region. Here are some highlights:
Personal papers from local residents, families, and teachers: Burbank, Cerini, Gibson, Eckenroad, Mitchell, and many others.
School records, graduation invitations, cheerleader outfits, pins, photographs, and a full run of yearbooks from Tomales High School.
Nineteenth-century school registers, board minutes, photographs, and letters about schools throughout the shoreline region.
Event programs, ribbons, artifacts, and photos celebrating Marin and Sonoma County agriculture and ranching history.
Ledgers, invoices, artifacts, and photographs about local businesses, from dry goods stores to saloons.
Cookbooks created by regional organizations, dating back to 1912.
Clothing made from the nineteenth century through the 1970s, including wedding clothes, bathing suits and flapper dresses from the 1920s, and World War I and II uniforms.
And much more!
How to use our Archives
A toy goat cart, made of iron with still-functioning wheels, found buried in Tomales.
Only a small portion of our Collection is on display in the museum at any given time. There is, of course, much, much more in our archival storage room.
If you are doing research on the Tomales area, the larger region, or even into Sonoma County, you can make an appointment to visit our Archives. Send an email to archivist Lynn Downey with your name, email address, and phone number. Describe your research topic, what you hope to find, and how you will use the information (a school project, family history project, book, film, magazine article, etc.). The email address is archives@tomaleshistory.com.
Donating to the collection
We welcome donations of documents, photographs, and artifacts which are relevant to the history of the shoreline region. If you have something to donate, please contact archivist Lynn Downey via email, at archives@tomaleshistory.com.
Bulletin
BULLETIN, Tomales Regional History Center, Vol. 39, Number 1, Winter 2018
This New Year edition of the quarterly was inspired in large part by the disastrous fires in our neighboring Sonoma County a few months earlier. The issue’s theme of “Change, Recovery, and Adaptation” is a common one across all of history, and the issue explores the cycles, large and small, of local change and recovery, from well before settlement to today.
BULLETIN, Tomales Regional History Center, Vol. 39, Number 2, Spring 2018
In the History Center’s 40th year, we are both remembering our beginning and considering our progress. This introspective Bulletin issue examines the organization’s Mission Statement, with words and pictures. There is also a short piece about native son A. Bray Dickinson (1890 ̶ 1958), a local historian from whom we have learned much about the narrow gauge railroad and the village of Tomales.
The Bulletin is TRHC’s quarterly publication, mailed to our members in January, April, July, and October. Each issue includes stories and insights about the region’s past, illustrated with archival images from our large collection.
Each issue also keeps readers up to date on the organization’s plans and activities — our presentations, exhibitions, and other events, and the latest acquisitions to our Collection. We hope that you enjoy the sample issues posted above (PDFs). Click the image to open/download.
Links
Picnickers waiting for train pose near Lagunitas Creek on and around a tree stump, circa early 20th century.
This list of links includes a range of online resources relevant to local history that we occasionally use in our research and think might be of interest to our visitors as well.
Anne T. Kent California Room at the Marin Free Library
“History examines…the often ragged record of mankind’s experiments in living together through war and peace, its struggles for bread and leisure and faith, its germinal ideas and collective symbols.”