By Katie Nelson
Highline Times

As a prelude to the creation of the long-awaited Highline Heritage Museum, the Highline Historical Society is hosting an exhibit detailing the experiences of local people during the Great Depression.

The exhibit, called “Hope in Hard Times,” is currently traveling throughout Washington and will reside in an undecided Burien location from Oct. 4 through Jan. 4. Burien is the only city in the Puget Sound area to present the exhibit, according to Cyndi Upthegrove, executive officer for the historical society.

“It is the story of Washington state during the Great Depression, and we’re filling it in deeply, hugely, with what happened [in Highline],” Upthegrove said, adding that they expect 8,000 to 10,000 visitors over the three-month period.

While many people’s minds may turn to the stock market crash on Wall Street or other more publicized representations of the Great Depression, Washington was equally affected, with a staggering unemployment rate of 33 percent for over ten years.

In addition to a “riding the rails” vignette and other snapshots of Depression-era daily life, the exhibit will feature multiple community events. These include monthly movie screenings of classics such as the 1931 version of “Frankenstein” starring Boris Karloff, radio programs hosted by Old Time Radio in Seattle, and a bus tour of projects built by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

Upthegrove hopes that the exhibit will be a fun learning experience for generations of Highline residents, especially the younger ones.

“Ninety percent of the [homeless people] in the state were teenagers, which I think kids today will find very interesting,” she said.

“Hope in Hard Times” is an introduction to future events at the Highline Heritage Museum, whose goal is to sponsor four to five traveling exhibits per year.

“We wanted to do something to show the community what fun and engaging exhibits we can put together, and also to show them what having a traveling exhibition can do,” Upthegrove said. “Show what a museum is going to be like … and be able to go out and work with other organizations in the community.”

The museum itself is still a work in progress. The $11 million building has its funding partially covered, but will need continued donor support, Upthegrove says. However, the building’s environmentally friendly status and historical value have garnered it several financial grants, including one from the State Capital Heritage Fund for $336,000.

“Our whole board and all of the committees working on this thing believe that if you’re preserving the roots of a community, which is what our logo says, then you should be a green building,” said Upthegrove, mentioning that architecture firm Rohleder Borges designed the building with a partial green roof and pervious concrete to allow water to run through. “They submitted it for an award to the American Institute of Architects called ‘What Makes it Green?’ … Out of several hundred projects that were submitted, we came in number six.”

The two-story museum will sit on the corner of Ambaum Boulevard and South 152nd Street in Burien, where the current CrossFit Burien building is. The museum’s presence in Olde Burien increases its aptitude for generating income in that area, Upthegrove said.

“We had a professional community consultant come in and analyze the community around it, and he estimates that without ever bringing a traveling exhibit to town, that we will see 20,000-25,000 people a year through there, and probably put $2 million a year into Olde Burien,” she said. “We deliberately designed this to have things that change often enough and hopefully will be engaging enough that people will want to come back again and again.”

The historical society received its building permit in late June, and plans to begin the building process as soon as the funds are raised.