July 19, 2019 4:00 a.m.
Saturday will be a big day at the Douglas County Museum of Natural and Cultural History as the facility has its Mammoth 50^th Anniversary Celebration.
The event will take place from 2:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The museum grounds will be filled with plenty of kid’s activities, games, face painting, food trucks, booths and more. The museum itself will be open and free to visitors all day. Event highlights include live musical performances by Dan Harmon and Cascade Country at 3:00 p.m., Ty Curtis at 5:00 p.m. and Resurrection, a Journey tribute band at 7:00 p.m.
The museum was established by the Board of Commissioners in 1969 and opened its doors for the first time that year in conjunction with the start of the Douglas County Fair. When it was built the museum won a national award for its architecture and was featured in a number of publications. It was the 1989 recipient of the Award of Merit from the American Association for State and Local History for excellence and leadership in the field of local history. This year it received a top 10 Best Fan-Favorite Destination in Oregon award from Oregon Business.

The museum boasts Oregon’s largest natural history collection on display with more than 7,500 items that are used to help tell the ancient and contemporary stories of the Umpqua Valley.
For more information go to www.umpquavalleymuseums.org.
Daniel Robertson, museum director between 1983 and 1997, was on Inside Douglas County Thursday on News Radio 1240 KQEN talking more about the history of the museum and what it offers. That interview is a KQEN podcast at www.541radio.com.