South Umpqua Historical Society

10/10/2026

2026 - Thank you Lilja Family Fund of Oregon Community Foundation

On behalf of the Board of Directors of the South Umpqua Historical Society, the Pioneer Indian Museum at 421 SW 5th Street in Canyonville and our membership, I wish to express our gratitude for having received the support of the Lilja Family Fund through The Oregon Community Foundation with a grant for the coming year. The grant will pay staff assistance in cataloging and digitizing our collection to make it easily searchable to the public. Researching and digitizing enabled us to create an extensive exhibit honoring our local veterans in the early months of this year to celebrate our nation’s 250th year celebration.

Staff assistance is hugely valuable to the detailed registration of our collection of thousands of artifacts, photos, documents and books. Without the opportunity for funding assistance to our non-profit from the Oregon Community Foundation, we could not complete our work at the museum.

Susan Waddle

President, South Umpqua Historical Society

08/05/2026

The South Umpqua Historical Society, which maintains the Pioneer Indian Museum in Canyonville, wishes to gratefully thank The Nipa Hut, aka, Rose and David Deaton for their donation. Their last day of business was Friday, July 31 and they had invited their patrons to come on that day and they would donate the proceeds of the day to the museum.

Keeping our doors open and free to visiting families is always a challenge, so we are very grateful to Rose and David and all of the public who enjoyed Rose’s great food for the last time on Friday. What a wonderful gesture!

We hope they enjoy their time in retirement and we will miss The Nipa Hut.

06/09/2026

Join us for our pre-Flag Day open house this Saturday June 13 at the Museum! We will have the first US flag flown in Canyonville from 1862 on display in the main building along with local veteran items. The 34 star flag was sewn by Martha Thorn and several other local ladies.

The Museum will be open from 12:00-4:00 and there will be coffee and cookies available, as well as the antique engines running.

05/01/2026

Fifth grade students from Canyonville School got to learn about local history at the Pioneer and Indian Museum thanks to some of our great volunteers! We appreciate the students’ interest and participation. In addition to the regular displays they saw our single cylinder engines run and got to shell and grind corn.

Get in touch with us here or at the Museum if you’d like to help share local history with others. We’re always looking for more volunteers!

04/17/2026