What does the museum collect?
This is a important question. The sheer cost of cataloging, storing and caring for historical items makes it imperative that museums focus their collections, and acquire only those items that relate to their mission.
The mission of the museum is to collect, preserve and interpret the history of Mt. Hood. The collection will consist of documents, books, photographs, artifacts and other cultural objects related to Mt. Hood. Generally, the collection will focus on the time period beginning with the pioneering of the Barlow Road branch of the Oregon Trail in 1845. Due to financial and expertise limitations, the museum will not collect Native American related objects. The geographic scope of the collection will be present day Oregon state counties of Clackamas, Hood River, Multnomah and Wasco. Note the emphasis on present day, as in the 1800’s Clackamas and Wasco Counties encompassed all the Oregon lands east of Mt. Hood, to the Idaho and California borders.