Karshner Museum

Sal is a voice that rides along as you drive Washington's roads: the road ahead, the pass, the stories of the places you pass.

A local school district owning a natural history museum of its own is uncommon, and the Karshner Museum in Puyallup is one of the few [1]. It opened in 1930, the work of Dr Warner M. Karshner and his wife, who named it for their son, Paul Hibbert Karshner, taken by polio at seventeen while he was beginning his final year at Puyallup High School [1]. The museum began with ten thousand pieces the doctor had gathered himself, Native American material among them [1]. In time it took in items from South Pacific islands and a Dale Chihuly glass exhibit [1]. The Puyallup School District runs it and ties it into the curriculum through fifth grade [1]. In 2009 the museum assisted in the return of funerary objects from its holdings to the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Washington, and the Wanapum Band [1].