Our Evolving Story

The year was 1949. Dr. Coke Wood and his wife Ethelyn purchased and restored a stone constructed Gold Rush era building on Main Street in historic Murphys. The Woods began convincing local families to donate or loan historical artifacts to what would become a museum in honor of the town’s centennial celebration. It would be christened the Old Timers Museum. For more than 70 years the museum was staffed and managed solely by volunteers and kept alive by the Wood family, then by donations and fundraisers.

When the world changed in 2020 the Murphys Old Timers Museum shut its doors like many museums. However our beloved little slice of history would never re-open. The artifacts that made the museum so special moved on. And the people that kept the museum running for so long, mourned. Many of the artifacts were returned to later generations of the families that donated them. But most of them were put in the capable hands of the curators at the Angels Camp Museum where they have been lovingly catalogued and displayed. And the crown jewels of the collection, the priceless array of historical Native American woven baskets, were donated to the Miwuk Cultural Museum, currently being built in Angels Camp. 

The reimagining of our organization by the dedicated historians and community members that make up MOTM took several more years to come about. The MOTM played a small but mighty role in the production of two documentaries. Calaveras Tales captures the memories and stories of Calaveras County as told by members of seven of our county's multi-generational families. Cattle in the Sierra explores the controversy of high-country cattle grazing.

This got some juices flowing for us. In 2023, when the Albert Michelson Education Project (AMEP) came to us asking for a donation to start their dream of creating an exhibit to highlight and honor Murphys’ most famous resident, Nobel Prize winner Albert Michelson, MOTM jumped at the opportunity. In 2024 the exhibit was opened to great success. Sensing a renewed purpose in our ranks, the AMEP came to us with more projects that would create learning opportunities for the community. The board met and agreed to change our mission from simply preserving and displaying our history to harnessing our history to inspire new generations of leaders and thinkers.