RAINIER - Just in time for the the city's Rainier Days annual celebration, the city's young historical museum will reopen in a larger, more permanent space.

The Rainier Oregon Historical Museum, launched in 2014 as a loose collection of historical photos, will now have its own room on the top floor of Rainier City Hall.

The light opening will take place on July 7, coinciding with opening day of Rainier Days in the Park. The first exhibit's theme will be "Rainier Days Revisited," focusing on the history of the annual festival. The grand opening will be on Sept. 9.

"Our main purpose is to preserve the history of Rainier and to be able to share it with the community and the people passing through," said Kay Heflin, museum president.

Heflin, 68, has lived in Rainier her entire life. She said she has always been intrigued by her hometown's history thanks to her father, who died in 2004.

"I got all of his old pictures. He used to be a photographer," she said. "The man that taught him about photography also had old pictures, so I got my dad's old collection of Rainier pictures that he had. So I started posting them on Facebook, and people really just responded that they liked them."

For its first three years, the museum has displayed photos in glass cases in city hall and at the post office, according to Heflin. Eventually, the museum board sought to move into a bigger, more permanent space after learning that many residents were interested in the town's history.

"When we had our first 'Getting to know you and our museum' meeting last summer at the senior center, we had standing room only," Heflin said.

According to museum historian Mike Clark, who collects artifacts from the town's past, said the museum board asked the city to use the vacant third floor room. The pitch: "To actually have exhibits that keep changing that reflect different parts of Rainier's history."

City Hall eventually agreed, and now the museum has that vacant room mostly to itself.

So far, Heflin said the museum will consist mainly of photos from her father's collection, old scrapbooks from deceased Rainier historian Eleanor Abraham, and other artifacts, such as dishes that are more than 100 years old from an old Rainier store.

Their new display cases were funded by a $1,700 grant from the Columbia County Cultural Coalition. Heflin said they've only spent $800 of their grant so far. Other storage items were donated from Country Financial or the Oregon Historical Society.

According to Heflin, there will be over 3,000 different photos in the collection, and some artifacts, such as antique Rainier-themed Christmas postcards, go back as far as the early 1900s.

Heflin said she believes the museum will continue to grow as citizens contribute their own heirlooms.

"The most important thing for us is to preserve the history and share the history with our community," she said. "People can come in and see the pictures and what we have, and hopefully as time goes on, they'll see what we have, and maybe they'll start donating things that they have."